Tennessee softball has an SEC Tournament problem.
The Lady Vols won the whole tournament in 2023, but they haven’t picked up a single game at the SEC’s since then, and that trend continued on Wednesday as they were upset by Ole Miss in a 4-1 loss to mark the third straight one-and-done result in the conference tournament. Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly lamented her team’s lack of adjustments and lackluster performance in every phase.
“Things aren’t going to go your way all the time in a game,” Weekly said. “But you have to figure out a way defensively to stop the bleeding, and then you have to figure out a way on offense to come through with a big hit with runners in scoring position. That’s what softball’s about this time of year: good pitching, playing really clean defense and timely hitting. And we didn’t really do any of those three today.”
The Lady Vols plated a measly four hits and one run, coming via a single off the bat of Bella Faw in the bottom of the second inning. The shortstop also made a key defensive play in the top of the inning to keep Ole Miss off the board.
But the Lady Vols couldn’t take advantage of the few opportunities they did have against a strong Rebels pitching staff, leaving eight runners on base in total.
“I think there were some things early in the game that we didn’t capitalize on that I thought we should have acknowledged and addressed a little bit differently individually,” Weekly said.
When Ole Miss took the lead in the top of the fourth, and Karlyn Pickens came in for Sage Mardjetko on the mound, it was an important inflection point for Tennessee on both sides of the ball. But there were no adjustments to be found.
“I didn’t sense that we got deflated when we went down 2-1,” Weekly said. “We honestly just didn’t make adjustments. Things that we weren’t doing well in the first inning, we didn’t make good individual adjustments.”
Pickens couldn’t find the strike zone consistently. She only threw 32 strikes across 60 pitches, ending the night with three walks, a hit-by-pitch, and two earned runs in 3.1 innings of work.
Weekly said heading into the tournament that she wanted her team to play on their toes and not on their heels. She was brutally honest about how they did in that department against the Rebels.
“Not very well,” Weekly said. “(Faw) did, but collectively, no, I would not say that this was a good performance from that standpoint.”
Now, the Lady Vols will head into tournament play having lost their last two games. For this team to get back on track at the right time, Weekly says it’s not about one player stepping up to be a leader, but everyone on the team doing their job.
“To me, it’s individual accountability and responsibility,” Weekly said. “You have a job to do, you go out there and do it. When you’re not doing your job, then it’s pretty hard for anyone to step up and be the “rah-rah” person and for it to make any kind of impact.”
Weekly needs her team to remember that there are no do-overs the rest of the way.
“We have a thing we say in our program when you make a mistake, we say MAGIC, which is an acronym for ‘Make A Greater Individual Commitment,’” Weekly said. “But we all know the MAGIC’s are about to come to an end, because it’s win or go home now, plain and simple. So if you can’t get fired up, and you can’t get locked in, and you can’t really be disciplined now, and accountable, you’re never going to be.”
