A win or two at this week’s Southeastern Conference softball tournament would have cemented a top-eight seed for Tennessee in the looming NCAA tournament.
That didn’t happen, as the fifth-seeded Lady Volunteers were abruptly bounced by 13th-seeded Ole Miss 4-1 in Wednesday’s second round. They will learn their NCAA itinerary at 7 p.m. Sunday, when the 64-team field is revealed on ESPN2.
“We can’t control what happens with seeding,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said in a press conference following the one-and-done showing in Lexington, Kentucky. “You have to do things to put yourself in the best position possible. At this point, whatever happens, happens.
“There are a lot of other things we can control and need to control regardless of where we’re seeded.”
Tennessee will enter the NCAA tournament with a sparkling 42-10 record but having lost its regular-season finale at Missouri and then its lone SEC tourney contest.
The Lady Vols have been one of the 16 NCAA regional hosts every year since 2005 — there was no 2020 tournament due to the coronavirus outbreak — and have hosted three straight best-of-three super regionals, defeating Texas in 2023 to advance to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, losing to Alabama in 2024 and defeating Nebraska last season to advance again. This year’s NCAA regionals will be May 15-17 and the super regionals May 21-24, with the eight-team WCWS starting May 28 and running through June 5.
More important for Weekly is reinvigorating a roster that set a program record in March with a 26-0 start and had assembled a solid 11-2 spurt before losing last Saturday at Mizzou.
“I’m not big for that one person who’s going to energize,” Weekly said. “To me, it’s individual accountability and responsibility. You have a job to do, and you go out there and do it. When the person next to me is doing her job, then I can trust that. When you’re not doing your job, then it’s pretty hard for anyone to step up and be the, ‘Rah, rah,’ person and make any kind of impact.
“To me, energy comes from great communication on the field and great attention to detail.”
When junior shortstop Bella Faw was asked about getting the Lady Vols back to their winning ways, she said: “It’s trusting our coaches and trusting our preparation. That’s really all it is right now.”
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Wednesday’s loss to Ole Miss will give Tennessee nine days between games, easily its longest break of the season, and Weekly is not about to let this chunk of time go to waste.
“There will be a good amount of practice for sure,” Weekly said. “It’s a good opportunity to work on a lot of things, but we’re also about to be in the middle of finals, so this allows them to focus on their academics. We have a thing in our program where we say ‘Magic’ when we make a mistake, which is an acronym for, ‘Make a greater individual commitment.’
“Well, we all know that the ‘magics’ are about to come to an end. It’s win or go home now, plain and simple, and if you can’t get fired up and locked in and be really disciplined now, you’re never going to be.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.