They will not come any easier.
Tennessee's quest for a berth in the Women's College World Series began Friday night with an expected mismatch against Northern Kentucky in the Knoxville Regional, and the top-seeded Lady Vols soared past the fourth-seeded Horizon League champion with a 12-0 pounding inside Sherri Parker Lee Stadium that was shortened to five innings.
The Lady Vols, who swept the Southeastern Conference's regular-season and tournament championships to earn the 64-team NCAA tournament's No. 4 overall seed, improved to 45-8, while the Norse dropped to 23-31.
Payton Gottshall got the start for the Lady Vols and threw an abbreviated no-hitter, racking up nine strikeouts with two walks serving as her lone blemishes. The senior transfer from Bowling Green threw three perfect games at her former school and collected her first no-hitter at her new locale.
"My plan was to just attack with my pitches and not really focus on their offense as much," Gottshall said in a news conference. "It feels good. I didn't even know that."
Tennessee will play second-seeded Indiana at 1 p.m. Saturday, with the Hoosiers having advanced Friday afternoon with a 4-3 topping of third-seeded Louisville. The Tennessee-Indiana winner will clinch a spot in Sunday's Knoxville Regional championship round and would have to lose twice to get eliminated.
Zaida Puni got Friday's party started for Tennessee with a solo home run to right field in the first inning, and the Lady Vols blew the game open with a six-run third. Jamison Brockenbrough's bases-loaded triple to right brought in Rylie West, Mackenzie Donihoo and Giulia Koutsoyanopulos, and a Katie Taylor double to right scored Brockenbrough.
McKenna Gibson's double to left-center scored Taylor and Kiki Milloy to cap that six-run outburst, but the Lady Vols would score five more in the fourth, when Puni connected on a three-run homer to left-center and Brockenbrough added a two-run single down the right-field line.
Brockenbrough finished with five RBIs, with Puni collecting four.
"This was a good first win," Lady Vols coach Karen Weekly said. "That game was a lot tougher than that final score indicated, and I'm proud of my team battling to figure things out. We struggled a little early, but Zaida shows the way for us a lot, and she did again today."
Tennessee Athletics photo / Andrew Lindsey worked into the ninth inning Friday night in leading the No. 18 Volunteers to a 5-0 win over No. 13 South Carolina in Columbia.Lindsey paces Vols
Andrew Lindsey delivered Tennessee's most impressive start of the season Friday night as the No. 18 Vols downed No. 13 South Carolina 5-0 Friday night at Founders Park in Columbia.
Lindsey, the 6-foot-3, 216-pound junior who began his career at Walters State and Charlotte, recorded the first out of the ninth inning before finally being pulled after 103 pitches. He allowed just three hits while striking out five.
"He's an ultimate competitor, and he wants to be on the field," Vols coach Tony Vitello told reporters afterward. "He even admitted to me that he was going on fumes, but he still had good stuff. The ball was still moving.
"He's done a lot of good things since we've given him the ball in the starting role, but he's built his arm up now and built up the repetitions, so there is nothing really holding him back."
Lindsey retired 17 straight batters at one point and threw one pitch all night with a runner in scoring position.
"It was more of a grind than the scoreboard might indicate," Lindsey said. "I just kept trusting the defense, and they kept making plays behind me. Some of those plays weren't easy to make."
Hunter Ensley went 4-for-5 and drove in Christian Scott three times, while Dylan Dreiling's two-run home run to left-center in the fourth inning put Tennessee up 3-0.
The Vols improved to 37-17 overall and to 15-13 in SEC play heading into Saturday's two seven-inning games.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.