Ready, set, Lady Vols.
Tennessee will open the Women’s College World Series on Thursday against familiar foe Alabama, with the noon Eastern showdown from Oklahoma City being televised by ESPN. This is the first appearance for the Lady Vols in the WCWS since 2015, and it’s also the inaugural such occasion since Karen Weekly assumed the coaching reins from her husband two years ago after the couple had guided the program together for two decades.
“People want to make a big deal about me coaching on my own now, but I don’t coach on my own,” Weekly said in a news conference last weekend after the Lady Vols dispatched Texas in a super regional inside Sherri Parker Lee Stadium. “I don’t do anything on my own. I’ve got so many people who help me every day, and probably the best thing I do is hire people smarter than me so that we can do this together.
“Ralph is a huge part of that. Ralph has recruited all these girls, so he’s not gone. He’s just as much a part of this.”
Tennessee is the NCAA tournament’s No. 4 overall seed with Alabama at No. 5, and the winner between the Lady Vols (49-8) and Crimson Tide (45-20) would play again Saturday afternoon (3 on ABC) against the winner of Thursday’s second game between No. 1 Oklahoma and No. 9 Stanford. The Tennessee-Alabama loser and the Oklahoma-Stanford loser would vie Friday night (7 on ESPN), with the loser of that contest the first team eliminated from the eight-member field.
The other half of the bracket has No. 3 Florida State taking on No. 6 Oklahoma State and No. 7 Washington battling No. 15 Utah, with those matchups taking place Thursday night.
“We need to finish this,” Alabama coach Patrick Murphy told reporters before the Tide left Tuscaloosa. “This is our 14th trip, but we need to win another one. That percentage needs to go up. We’re going out there with one purpose, and that’s to win it.
“I wouldn’t put it past them, because they’ve done some crazy things so far.”
Alabama became the first Southeastern Conference school to win the WCWS title, accomplishing the feat in 2012, and Florida followed with championships in 2014 and 2015.
Tennessee and Alabama will be playing for the fifth time this season, with the Lady Vols having won three of the first four. The Lady Vols won two of three games in Knoxville back in late March and then outlasted the Tide 7-6 in the SEC tournament semifinals on May 12 in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Alabama pounced on freshman starting pitcher Karlyn Pickens with a four-run first inning at the SEC tournament, prompting Weekly to replace her with senior Payton Gottshall, but Tennessee tied the game later in the first on Lair Beautae’s grand slam.
The Lady Vols and Tide have two of the SEC’s most successful pitchers of this era who are in their fifth years at their respective schools.
Tennessee’s Ashley Rogers enters the WCWS with a career record of 77-24, with the former Meigs County standout saving her best for last. Rogers is 18-1 this season with an 0.75 ERA.
Alabama’s Montana Fouts, meanwhile, has posted a career mark of 100-31 and has a 1.48 ERA this season. Fouts sustained a leg injury during the SEC tourney but returned to help the Tide survive Middle Tennessee State in the Tuscaloosa Regional and No. 12 Northwestern in the super regional.
Rogers honored
Rogers was recognized Tuesday night in Oklahoma City as the recipient of the Elite 90 award for this year’s NCAA Division I softball championship.
The Elite 90 is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA’s championship events. Rogers recently graduated from Tennessee with a master’s in kinesiology, and she finished with a 4.0 GPA.
Rogers was named the 2023 SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year and is a two-time Academic All-American.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.