The Tennessee Lady Vols are making history on a daily basis.
After sweeping the Southeastern Conference's regular season and tournament softball championships for the first time in program history with Saturday afternoon's 3-1 downing of South Carolina in the tourney title game at Fayetteville, Arkansas, the Lady Vols earned the NCAA tournament's No. 4 overall seed Sunday night.
Tennessee has been a top-16 national seed every year since the seeding system for the 64-team field began in 2005, but the Lady Vols have never been as high as fourth.
"It was an exciting weekend, and I'm just so proud of them and what they've been able to accomplish," Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said on ESPN2. "Tonight was exciting, and it always is with the selection show. We left here tonight and said, 'OK, celebrate until midnight, and then tomorrow morning we get back to work.'
"I know they'll be ready to do that, because they've done it all year long."
Tennessee's previous high seed of No. 5 occurred in 2007, when the Lady Vols advanced all the way to the Women's College World Series best-of-three championship series before falling to Arizona. They went back to the WCWS title series as the No. 7 seed in 2013, falling to Oklahoma.
This year's Lady Vols have a 44-8 record, the best since the 2007 team finished 63-8.
"When we play an opponent, they know that they can't take anything off," Lady Vols outfielder and SEC tournament MVP Kiki Milloy said Saturday in a news conference. "We are solid one through nine, and we will stay solid."
Oklahoma is the overwhelming favorite to win this year's championship with its 51-1 record and 43-game winning streak. The Sooners are 166-8 the past three seasons and are seeking to become the first to win three straight softball national titles since UCLA from 1988-90.
UCLA (52-5) is the No. 2 seed in this year's field, with Florida State (50-8), Tennessee, Alabama (40-18), Oklahoma State (41-14), Washington (38-12) and Duke (45-10) comprising the rest of the top eight seeds, which are assured of playing at home until the WCWS, provided they keep winning.
The Knoxville Regional headed by the Lady Vols also includes Indiana (42-16), Louisville (35-18) and Northern Kentucky (23-30). The Lady Vols will open against Northern Kentucky, the Horizon League champion, at 5:30 p.m. Friday.
"There are definitely some things we need to improve on," Weekly said after the SEC championship win. "Our defense needs to be a little cleaner. We were playing really good defense the first half of the season, and, quite honestly, it's just a matter of getting back to practice.
"In the second part of the year, you're just going, and you don't get as many practice opportunities. We just need to clean up come communication things."
The SEC had 12 of its 13 softball-playing members reach the NCAA tournament, with No. 10 LSU, No. 11 Arkansas and No. 14 Georgia also earning top-16 seeds. Texas is the No. 13 seed, so if the Lady Vols and Longhorns win their respective regionals, they would vie in a super regional.
Wildcats rout Vols
Tennessee had its share of baserunners during Sunday afternoon's series finale against Kentucky.
The Vols just couldn't bring any of them home.
Kentucky (35-15, 15-12 SEC) avoided a series sweep inside Lindsey Nelson Stadium with a 10-0 blanking that handed Tennessee (35-17, 14-13) its first shutout since the Vols fell 6-0 to Virginia in the 2021 College World Series. The Vols left an astounding 16 runners on base.
"To leave them on base, you've got to get on base, and that's what we're trying to do," Tennessee coach Tony Vitello said in a news conference. "You'll see that a lot of the productive and best offenses have that as a high number. I thought when we pushed the first one across that others would come, but we couldn't even do that.
"It was an odd day."
Vols starting pitcher Drew Beam retired only five batters, allowing a two-run home run by Hunter Gilliam and an RBI double by Devin Burkes in the first inning and a solo homer by Grant Smith in the second. Following a weather delay in the third inning that lasted nearly two hours, Ryan Waldschmidt homered in the fifth inning to extend Kentucky's lead to 5-0, and Burkes would strike again with a two-run homer in the eighth to make it 7-0.
Tennessee left fielder Jared Dickey didn't play after injuring his right shoulder in Saturday's 10-7 win. Vitello said Dickey is experiencing soreness and that there is no need to rush the .352 hitter.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.