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Tennessee softball loses two of three at Ole Miss: Three takeaways

By Caleb Calhoun

Tennessee mascot Smokey on the sidelines during the NCAA college football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Bowling Green Falcons in Knoxville, Tenn. on Thursday, September 2, 2021.Ut Bowling Green
Tennessee mascot Smokey on the sidelines during the NCAA college football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Bowling Green Falcons in Knoxville, Tenn. on Thursday, September 2, 2021.Ut Bowling Green /
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One blowout win on Sunday was surrounded by two closes losses. As a result, Tennessee softball, while likely the better team lost two of three to the Ole Miss Rebels in their final regular season road series of the year. Karen Weekly’s team, ranked No. 12 or No. 13 depending on the service you go by, fell to 35-14 and 12-7 in SEC play in the process.

UT came back on Saturday after entering the seventh trailing 4-2 and tied it up, but Ole Miss had a walk-off single to win in the bottom of that inning. They allowed three runs in the third on Sunday to fall behind 3-0, and they could only muster one run after that. On Saturday, however, they dominated 10-1 in six innings.

Up next for Rocky Top is their SEC regular season series finale at home against the Auburn Tigers next weekend. Led by second-year head coach Jamie Trachsel, Ole Miss improves to 35-15 and 9-11 in SEC play. They will close out the year next weekend at the Georgia Bulldogs. Here are three things we learned form Tennessee softball’s series loss.

1. Pitching and errors, while minimal, proved costly.

The one bad pitching performance all weekend was Erin Edmoundson’s start on Saturday, as she gave up four earned runs in five innings. After that, the team allowed just five runs in 15 innings. Ryleigh White did allow the game-winning run that game, but Edmoundson’s play earlier is what proved costly.

Ashley Rogers pitched a complete one-run game Sunday, and Edmoundson rebounded with no earned runs in two innings Monday. In fact, the team allowed no earned runs. They also had one error all weekend. How did they lose Sunday, then? Ole Miss scored on two wild pitches from Nicola Simpson after they first reached on an error and a walk.

Funny enough, Ole Miss had more errors on the weekend, allowed more earned runs on the weekend and allowed more earned runs in two of the three games. However, these issues by the Lady Vols emerged at the worst times.

2. Offense relied on home runs and Ole Miss’ errors.

There was no offense for Tennessee softball outside of homers and Ole Miss mistakes. Over the weekend, they scored nine of their 15 runs off homers, and another one came off an error. Then there was an 11th that was unearned. Those two unearned runs came in the first game.

Ivy Davis went long once in each of the two losses. Lair Beautae, Rylie West and Ashley Morgan all went long Sunday, with Morgan going Long twice. There were three doubles in that game, and Zaida Puni had a double Saturday while driving in another run off a single, but only a double from West on Sunday drove in any runs.

3. Too many runners were left stranded.

This builds off of the offensive struggles we just mentioned. Baserunning wasn’t bad, as Rocky Top attempted and successfully stole two bases over the weekend. Both were in their losses, though, as Kaitlin Parsons stole one Saturday, and Amanda Ayala stole one Monday.

Still, Ayala didn’t make it home, and seven runners were left stranded with just one run scored Monday. On Friday, they also stranded seven runners with just four runs. This was as costly as anything to Tennessee softball, but the biggest issue were that the negatives all came at the worst times for them.

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