The Tennessee Lady Vols have been money this season.
Proof is in their dugout.
As impressive as Tennessee has been on the field this softball season in compiling a 50-8 record that includes nine consecutive postseason wins, the Lady Vols have been equally as entertaining in the dugout with their home run celebrations. As soon as a Tennessee player reaches home plate following a homer and heads to the dugout, the batting helmet comes off and a "Mommy" hat replaces it.
Once in the dugout, the celebrated player receives a bat that serves as a cane for her walk — or strut — among her teammates, who are showering her with fake money.
"I love it. I love it," Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said after Thursday afternoon's 10-5 downing of Alabama in the opening game of the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City. "The game has changed and evolved. The players have changed and evolved. The more fun they can have, the better, and I've changed in that respect.
"I used to not even like cheering, but then I realized they don't stay in the game if they're not cheering."
Tennessee, the fourth overall seed in this year's NCAA tournament, hopes the celebrations can continue Saturday (3 p.m. on ABC) when the Lady Vols challenge the top-seeded Oklahoma Sooners, who are 57-1 with an NCAA-record 49 straight wins. The winner of the Tennessee-Oklahoma showdown would play Monday (noon on ESPN) and would need one more victory to reach the WCWS best-of-three championship series.
The Tennessee-Oklahoma loser would play Sunday (7 p.m. on ESPN2) in an elimination contest.
Lady Vols center fielder and leadoff hitter Kiki Milloy leads the nation with 25 home runs, so she leads her team as far as being the centerpiece of the dugout ritual. Tennessee's baseball team adopted a "Daddy" hat in 2020 and added a fur coat last season to its home run celebrations.
"We were like, 'Let's wear the Daddy hat,' but then someone made us a Mommy hat," Milloy said. "Whenever you pimp a home run, you get to have the big pimping stick and walk through the dugout. It's just great seeing all of your teammates celebrating you."
McKenna Gibson and Zaida Puni have 15 and 13 home runs, respectively, but some of the biggest celebrations this season have been saved for those with a precious few. Rylie West's three-run homer to left field that gave Tennessee a 10-2 bulge Thursday afternoon was certainly cause for excitement.
That blast was her fifth this season.
"I think a lot of dugout traditions started with COVID because we weren't allowed to go out," West said. "The value is just getting to celebrate with your team in the dugout and still have a celebration.
"The money is not real. I wish it was, but it has all of our faces on it, so it's pretty cool. You get to see everyone's faces flying when someone hits a home run."
Lair Beautae and Katie Taylor have combined for just seven home runs this season, but their two combined swings of the bat in last month's Southeastern Conference tournament semifinal against the Crimson Tide accounted for six runs in Tennessee's 7-6 triumph.
Those two homers helped enable the Lady Vols to sweep the SEC's regular-season and tournament titles for the first time in program history, which was obviously worth celebrating in some way.
"Whatever kind of keeps them engaged and connected," Weekly said. "My thing on celebrations, and I've told them this, is that we're never going to allow anything that is directed at our opponent, but we'll celebrate us all day long."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.