Tennessee softball utilized the home half of each frame on Friday night.
The Lady Vols manufactured runs in each of the nine innings played against Lee, and walked away 22-1 winners over the Flames at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium.
“We’re not playing to the scoreboard,” head coach Karen Weekly told The Daily Beacon.
The win featured 19 hits from Tennessee and a five-inning no-hitter in the circle from Maddi Rutan. It came in a variety of ways, including three home runs while also legging out some infield singles.
“It’s absolutely necessary,” Weekly said. “There have been years where maybe we didn’t have enough power, too much speed, or didn’t have to speed and it had too much power when you’re relying on all they want. If it goes dry, you’re kind of stuck.
“So it’s nice that we can do a lot of things. What I really like tonight is we put up a run every inning. So as an offense, we didn’t take an inning off. We didn’t have any dry spells, and I think we had that last week.”
Rutan took her place in the circle and delivered a clean opening frame to bring the bats to the plate. True freshman Taelyn Holley wasted no time out of the two-hole getting the scoring started. Sophia Knight drew a leadoff walk, then Holley followed with an RBI double to bring her home. Rutan added an RBI single of her own while Emma Clarke and Gabby Leach did the same to make it a 4-0 game through one.
Tennessee strung together a round of four consecutive at-bats with a score in the second inning, quickly putting the game out of reach as Rutan continued to deal. That came with a pair of infield RBI singles playing the small-ball game.
“I liked the way we saw opportunities to bunt, and we saw opportunities to slap and move runners, and we didn’t pay attention to the score,” Weekly said. “I liked the base running, again, not paying attention to the score. And so there’s a lot of things you can work on.”
It wasn’t until the third inning that the long ball arrived. Holley took a pitch deep over the wall, tracking three RBIs home for a double-digit lead through three. Alannah Leach added another in the fourth inning before Rutan’s day was called in the circle after her fifth inning of work concluded.
During her time pitching, Rutan allowed one baserunner on a second-inning walk while striking out eight batters. Kailey Plumlee took her spot in the circle and let the no-hitter dwindle when the Flames pushed across a seventh-inning double off the left-field wall.
That was part of Lee’s biggest inning of the night. The Flames scored a run following the double with an RBI single, and added additional baserunners in the inning with two walks. Plumlee bounced back with two strikeouts, however.
“We had our infield in to work on defending,” Weekly said. “Their runner at third. I mean, usually you don’t do that with a lead, but we just got to work on things. So there were situations we were able to work on.”
Over the back half of the game, Tennessee’s offense slowed but did not quit. Ella Dodge made it a third long-ball in the sixth inning, while an error and groundout plated runs in the seventh, followed by a run-scoring fielder’s choice in the eighth and an RBI sacrifice fly in the ninth.
Tennessee used just two pitchers in the game, Rutan and Plumlee, and allowed Lee seven total baserunners for the game while not committing an error defensively.
“They’re a pretty aggressive bunch, which I really like,” Weekly said. “From the get-go practice, we could see that we were going to be saying ‘Whoa instead of Go.’ And I really like that. It’s a fun, fun way to coach, and it bodes well for how we’re going to play the game.”
Tennessee will next hit the road for Atlanta, snagging a doubleheader against Georgia Tech on Oct. 18. It is a chance to face another power program after home fall ball scrimmages against local low-level programs.
“That’s going to be a different kind of challenge, and then excited to be playing another P4 team that is going to provide great competition,” Weekly said. “So just really want them to be focused and present and still playing the game one pitch at a time.”
