Tennessee softball loses SEC Tournament semifinal to Mizzou: Three takeaways
![Tennessee's outfielder Katie Taylor (1) heads back to first after being caught in a pickle in the bottom of the fifth inning against Missouri in the semifinal game of the SEC Tournament, Friday, May 13, 2022, at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, Florida. The Tigers beat the Lady Vols 3-0 and move on to the finals. [Cyndi Chambers/ Special to the Sun] 2022Sec Softball Semifinals](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_1080,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape%2Fcover%2Fsport%2F05603c38911d54b358702511f3bb501bdae60c02574afea23ed108e1e9deb67c.jpg "Tennessee's outfielder Katie Taylor (1) heads back to first after being caught in a pickle in the bottom of the fifth inning against Missouri in the semifinal game of the SEC Tournament, Friday, May 13, 2022, at Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium in Gainesville, Florida. The Tigers beat the Lady Vols 3-0 and move on to the finals. [Cyndi Chambers/ Special to the Sun] 2022Sec Softball Semifinals")
It was a missed opportunity. One day after beating the Mississippi State Bulldogs 1-0 in 13 innings, the No. 3 seed Tennessee softball had a chance to reach the SEC Tournament championship game thanks to the No. 7 seed Missouri Tigers upsetting the No. 2 seed Alabama Crimson Tide.
However, UT then lost Mizzou themselves 3-0 in the semifinals of the tournament Friday despite having swept them on the road during the regular season. Ranked anywhere from No. 10 to No. 13 depending on the service you use, Karen Weekly’s team will now wait to see where they go in the NCAA Regionals.
Meanwhile, Missouri, anywhere from No. 22 to unranked depending on the service you use, advanced to the SEC Championship game to face the No. 1 seed Arkansas Razorbacks Saturday. Here are three things we learned from Tennessee softball’s loss.
1. The power was all with Missouri.
This game was actually pretty simple. Although the Lady Vols have been the team to rely on home runs all year, Mizzou was the team that took advantage Friday. UT had six hits in the game to Missou’s, four but three of them were solo homers.
Those three were the only runs scored in the game. Kimberly Wert homered in the fourth to break a scoreless tie. Hatti Moore homered in the fifth. Kara Daly homered in the seventh. Two of those homers, from Wert and Daly, came with two strikes.
2. Erin Edmoundson was fine outside of the home runs.
If you take away the home runs, Erin Edmoundson was fine. She pitched a complete game and only allowed four hits. Honestly, all Tennessee softball fans would have been confident if they saw just that stat line was going to be the case heading into the game.
In addition to allowing just four hits, Edmoundson struck out six, and she didn’t walk anybody. It was just one of those days. You could blame the two-hour weather delay in the middle of the game, but two of Mizzou’s homers happened before then.
3. Too many runners were again left stranded.
They got away with it on Thursday, but the Lady Vols stranding runners cost them Friday. Of course, they only had six hits this time, but they left five runners stranded, and that proved costly. In both the second and third innings, they had runners on first and second. Both times, they came up empty-handed.
Even worse for them, in the second, they had runners on with no outs, and a sac bunt put runners on second and third. Then they had two straight groundouts. In the third, they had runners on with one out and then grounded into a double-play. Those killed Tennessee softball, and that’s where they lost this game.