In their final regular season series of the year, the Tennessee Lady Vols softball team, ranked anywhere from No. 12 to No. 14 depending on the service you use, swept the Auburn Tigers, ranked anywhere from No. 15 to No. 19 depending on the service you use. UT clinched the No. 3 seed in next week’s SEC Tournament.
Karen Weekly’s team defeated Mickey Dean’s team at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium in Knoxville, Tenn., 5-2 and 7-4 in two games on Saturday after weather postponed Friday’s game and 3-1 on Sunday. The only time they trailed all game was for half an inning, as they went into the bottom of the fourth Saturday down 4-2 before scoring three runs.
With the win, Rocky Top finishes 38-15 and 15-8 in SEC play. Their first tournament game will be Friday. Auburn finishes 39-14 and 11-13 in SEC play with their first tournament game set for Thursday as the No. 11 seed. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee softball’s impressive weekend sweep.
1. Pitching was elite except for one bad inning.
Erin Edmoundson allowed those four runs in the fourth inning Saturday. Outside of that, everything was great for UT on the mound. On Sunday, Edmoundson redeemed herself by retiring the final two batters in clutch fashion to secure the 3-1 win. She allowed no other runs Saturday and pitched a complete game.
Ashley Rogers got the start in the first game and allowed just two runs in a complete game. Ryleigh White pitched over six inning Sunday and allowed just one run. If you take out that one inning, this team allowed three runs in the other 20. That’s pretty impressive.
2. Home runs and baserunning drove the scoring.
After falling behind 4-2 in Saturday’s second game, the Tennessee Lady Vols hit three straight homers in the bottom of the fourth to take the lead back. Zaida Puni, Ivy Davis and Kelcy Leach all hit solo shots. Puni hit another two-run homer later in the game. Amanda Ayala hit one Sunday, and Ivy Davis hit one Friday, so seven of their 15 runs this weekend came off six homers.
While solo shots drove the scoring, baserunning added to it. Leach drove in Ayala from second on Sunday in the fourth, and then she stole second herself so Ashley Morgan could drive her in. They were helped in the first game Saturday by Auburn mistakes, as they scored three unearned runs, two off errors, thanks to heads up baserunning.
3. A perfect defensive weekend added insurance.
Mistakes by Auburn in the first gam Saturday, including two errors and three allowed unearned runs, were huge. However, at the same time, they were superb defensively. They have been getting better all year, and it culminated with a perfect performance to close out the weekend.
The Tennessee Lady Vols committed no errors in all three games combined. All three games saw six strikeouts, by their pitchers, so hey had a total of 63 putouts along with another 22 assists. This combined with the baserunning, home runs and elite pitching saved them on both Friday and Sunday, and the homers carried them Saturday.