The first Women’s College World Series game for Tennessee since 2015 was a hit.
Technically, it was a hit after a hit after a hit.
All nine Lady Vols reached safely within the first three innings Thursday afternoon as Tennessee thumped Alabama 10-5 in the opening WCWS contest at EOG Energy Field in Oklahoma City. The Lady Vols hung six runs on Crimson Tide starting pitcher Jaala Torrence, who was replaced by Alex Salter after tallying just seven outs.
The victory was Tennessee’s 50th this season against eight defeats.
“It really was the kind of game we expected based on the scores of our last two games, 7-5 and 7-6,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said afterward in a news conference. “Alabama is a great team. We know they have a lot of great hitters. Even when we got to 10, you just kind of felt like they were not going to go away, and they didn’t.
“I’m just really proud of our team and how we were tough the whole game and just kept our foot on the pedal and built up a big enough lead that we could come away with the win.”
Tennessee, the No. 4 overall seed in this year’s NCAA tournament, will next play top-seeded Oklahoma, which improved to 57-1 and won its 49th consecutive contest late Thursday afternoon with a 2-0 topping of Stanford. The Lady Vols and Sooners will collide Saturday afternoon at 3 on ABC.
“It’s hard not to know what Oklahoma is doing,” Weekly said. “I think we all hear about it. I mean, they’re loaded. They’re just absolutely loaded.”
Former Meigs County standout Ashley Rogers got the start for the Lady Vols and worked the first four innings. Payton Gottshall came in to pitch the fifth to try and secure a 10-2 run-rule victory, but Alabama struck for two runs to extend the game.
Tennessee won last month’s Southeastern Conference tournament by uniquely scoring all 14 of its runs with two outs. The Lady Vols had that mindset early on Thursday, as the matchup was one out away from being 0-0 heading into the third inning when Tennessee got two runners on and 9-hole hitter Katie Taylor drove them in with a double to the right-center field wall.
After the Tide chose to intentionally walk leadoff batter Kiki Milloy, Zaida Puni launched a double to the wall in left-center to extend Tennessee’s advantage to 4-0.
“Whenever they intentionally walk me, I’m like, ‘I don’t know if that’s the best move because Zaida is going to come up,’” Milloy said. “Every time they walk me, I feel like she’s done something to manufacture a run. That’s a tough decision to make as the other team.”
Alabama got on the board with a couple of third-inning runs, including one from a grounder that bounced off first base, but Tennessee regained a four-run advantage later in the third on Jamison Brockenbrough’s two-run home run to center. Rylie West put the game away in the fourth inning with a three-run homer to left that made it 10-2 and resulted in Salter’s final pitch.
“I got a good pitch, and I went for it,” West said.
The Lady Vols finished with 11 hits.
Fifth-seeded Alabama (45-21) will face No. 9 seed Stanford (45-14) in an elimination game at 7 p.m. Friday.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.