Rain preserves nation's best winning streak for Tennessee [video]

KNOXVILLE, TN - APRIL 16, 2017 - Outfielder Brooke Vines #4 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates a homer with her team at home plate during the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Donald Page/Tennessee Athletics
KNOXVILLE, TN - APRIL 16, 2017 - Outfielder Brooke Vines #4 of the Tennessee Volunteers celebrates a homer with her team at home plate during the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Tennessee Volunteers at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Donald Page/Tennessee Athletics

KNOXVILLE - Alabama threatened to end Tennessee's nation-leading 18-game softball winning streak Monday night at Lee Stadium.

Mother Nature helped preserve it.

Heavy rain began falling during a fourth-inning lightning delay, and the umpires officially canceled the Southeastern Conference game at 9:15, with the Crimson Tide leading 3-1.

The rainout left the nationally 14th-ranked Volunteers (39-5, 11-3) with a two-game sweep of the No. 9 Crimson Tide (36-9, 10-7).

The Vols close their regular-season SEC slate with LSU, Florida and Texas A&M, each ranked in the RPI top 12.

"I'm excited that our team had a chance to see such great pitching and learn from those experiences," co-head coach Karen Weekly said Monday night after the game was canceled. "Now we're headed into another series with tremendous pitching down at LSU, so hopefully we learned a few things."

Tennessee learned during the abbreviated series with Alabama that it might have a clutch gene.

Brooke Vines slapped a walk-off, two-run home run over the center-field fence to lift the Vols to a series-clinching 2-0 win Sunday night. That followed a Chelsea Seggern walk-off single that gave Tennessee a 3-2 series-opening win after trailing 2-0 on Saturday.

The dramatic endings came in front of sellout crowds and SEC Network television audiences.

Monday's game was shaping up to require more late-game heroics from Tennessee.

The Vols struck first, scoring a run on a first-inning sacrifice fly from Vines. But Alabama began to hone in on Tennessee pitcher Caylan Arnold as she worked through the Crimson Tide lineup a second time. Alabama put three earned runs on Arnold in the third, as Sunday night's winning pitcher Matty Moss entered to get the Vols out of the frame.

Moss pitched to two batters in the fourth inning before the rain delay began. There is an SEC policy against restarting games after 9 on the last night of a series. The game with Alabama won't be made up.

"I think we still need to mature in some ways," Weekly said. "I thought today, in the three innings we played, we just didn't have the toughness we saw the first two nights. We've got to learn how to stay tough for three days straight. Every time you go out there, you've got to be ready to throw punches."

The Vols are third in the conference standings, snd the teams ahead of them - Florida and Texas A&M - await on the schedule.

"The SEC, in general, feels like a super regional matchup every weekend," Weekly added. "I think all 13 of our teams could make regionals. Everybody is really strong. We're facing LSU, Texas A&M and Florida teams to end our season that all have RPIs higher than we do."

Contact staff writer David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com.

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