Tennessee softball closed its fall schedule against outside competition with a 14-1 victory over Lee University on Friday night.
Following the win, head coach Karen Weekly reflected on the Lady Vols’ offensive development, the maturity of her freshman class, and the areas that still need improvement before the spring season.
Weekly said Tennessee recorded its highest hard-hit ball percentage of the fall, exceeding 50% against Lee. She also discussed the competition within the pitching staff, emerging leaders, and the importance of getting several injured players healthy.
Here is everything Weekly said following the exhibition victory.
What were your overall takeaways from tonight’s performance?
Weekly: “They swung the bats, the way they played defense, really fundamentally sound, really well-coached team. Emily does a great job. Been there a long time and always puts a winner on the field. So I thought that was a good team for us to play against in our last game. I think the hitting continues to improve. I think we were above 50% tonight on hard-hit balls, which is the best we’ve done in a game this fall, and I think they’re seeing all their hard work paying off. They’ve been working hard, but there’s been some times we’ve had to kind of push the sense of urgency to make the adjustments, but they’ve responded. I like the way Maggie had a rough inning, some hard hits, they scored a run, but it didn’t faze her at all. And I think that’s a sign of our entire freshman class. They’re pretty low-drama type people. They don’t get too high or too low. They just keep putting one foot in front of the other and getting after it the next pitch. So I think their maturity has been a real bonus for our team. Sometimes you can spend a lot of your energy trying to get your freshmen just to mentally hang in there, and this class has been really, really mature in that respect.”
What did you think of Maddi Rutan’s performance in the circle?
Weekly: “I think Maddi just competes her tail off. She just loves to get out there and get after it. And when Maddie just kind of clears her head and has this attitude of, ‘I’m just going to beat you every pitch,’ you get really good results out of her, and we’re going to need that.”
How would you evaluate freshman Bailee Shelton’s performance?
Weekly: “She’s a big-time competitor, and she’s one of the freshmen that I’m talking about. They just stay really level-headed. She’s just always in go mode. She’s not going to dwell on anything that happened. And I like the way she swung the bat. I expect some big things from her in her career. She had a little setback this fall with an injury that kept her out for a while. But again, you see her, got limited action on Wednesday, a little more action tonight, and she’s one of those players that can step right in. Doesn’t need practice. She just wants to get in and play.”
What’s your message to the freshmen trying to earn a role this spring?
Weekly: “Just compete every day, and you never know what’s going to happen. You look at us tonight. I think we had one player that we substituted in outside the circle because we’re so banged up. Hopefully, it won’t be the case in the spring. We’re probably holding some people back right now, being a little more conservative because it’s fall. But it’s a very competitive team. It’s a deep team. You can get frustrated by that, or you can understand that when your opportunity comes, you need to be ready. And you never know when that opportunity is going to come. So that’s the message to not just the freshmen, really everybody.”
Illegal pitches have been called throughout the fall. How concerning is that?
Weekly: “Interesting you bring that up because that was my message in the circle just now. For all the good things we did tonight, that’s got to get cleaned up. It’s been something our pitchers have struggled with all fall. We’re eight games into this, and we’re still getting illegal pitch calls, and it’s just lack of discipline. You’ve got to be disciplined every single pitch you throw in your bullpen so that becomes a habit, so you are never doing that. Because we’ve got elite arms and elite stuff, but an illegal pitch can wipe all that out in a second, and you don’t want that call to come out at the worst possible time.”
What specifically impressed you about Sheldon’s pitching?
Weekly: “I like her pace, and her teammates love playing behind that. I think when you work at a pace like that, there’s no opportunity to dwell on something. The pitch is gone, get the ball, let’s go next pitch. I think she threw a lot of strikes tonight. I thought she threw her rise ball really effectively tonight. Mixed her fastball-slash-drop in well with it. But she just competes. She can see, ‘This is how I need to get this hitter out,’ and do it.”
What stood out about Elsa Morrison’s approach at the plate?
Weekly: “It’s such a difference watching a sophomore versus a freshman, and she’s attacking pitches early in the at-bat. There’s no hesitation. Every single pitch has a life of its own, and she’s looking for a ball she can drive. She’s one who’s worked a lot of extra time with Erin to refine her mechanics. We need her doing what she’s done these last two nights, which is taking those middle-in pitches and turning on them.”
How comfortable are you with the infield, particularly Emma Clarke at third base?
Weekly: “Early in the fall, when we decided we’re going to put her there and kind of see what happens, it didn’t take us too long to realize she’s doing really well, and we just need to leave her there so she can get more and more comfortable. That’s why she’s gotten so many of these innings over there. It’s important to get her comfortable. I think Carly looks really good at second. Bella, obviously, we know what Bella can do at short. First base is probably the one that’s still a little bit up in the air, in part because two of our first basemen have been out so much of the fall, McKenzie Butt and Amaya Doyle. We haven’t been able to get reps from them. But that’s allowed Meredith Barnhart to get a ton of reps and for her to get comfortable over there. There’s always a silver lining to everything. And then you’ve got Halle Bailey in there swinging a bat that’s going to be hard to keep out of the lineup with what she can do. She’s such a good slapper, and right now we’re having her swing away all the time so she can get better at that. But she still has a really dynamic slap tool in her tool belt, too.”
Has Clarke established herself as a leader in the infield?
Weekly: “I think so. She needs help in that respect. No one person can lead the whole team. That’s too big of a burden and responsibility for them. But there’s no question she’s the voice that you hear first, and everybody listens to.”
Who has stepped up as a leader or surprised you this fall?
Weekly: “I would say Elsa Morrison is really responding to the challenge to lead more on the field. I think she has a lot of natural leadership qualities, and the things that go through her mind are dead on. She seems to say them without hesitation. Carly Shelton, I would say, just because I didn’t get to coach her before. I knew what she could do, but probably didn’t know the extent to how good she is. She is a really, really, really good hitter and somebody who speaks up in our team huddles and in our team meetings. Another one that I think will be a really good leader for us once she gets just a little bit more comfortable in this new environment.”
Where did Tennessee improve the most this fall, and what still needs attention?
Weekly: “No question, we grew a lot offensively. We still have next week, too. We’re going to intrasquad a couple times. Thursday night at 5 o’clock is going to be open to the public. That’ll be our last official night of fall ball. But offensively, I saw us make pretty big strides. Still a lot of work to do, but in the things that Erin’s asked of them this fall, I think we’re finally starting to see those things happen a little bit more consistently here as we wrap up outside competition. We’ve just got to get healthy. That’s the biggest thing. The lineup we’ve had out there has been really, really solid, but we have the depth, and sometimes we don’t have a chance to really develop it because we’ve got so many kids having to miss too many of their practice and playing opportunities. I would say that maybe the question mark, but I feel good about the people we have that can answer it, is the pitching behind Sage and Erin. We know what Sage and Erin can do. They’ve done it at the highest level. We believe that Maddi, Bailee, Maggie, and Payton can all step in and provide really, really good innings at an SEC level. But that’s probably the one thing we just haven’t seen enough of, and part of that is we didn’t play that kind of a schedule in the fall. There’s one thing that I wish we could do over, it’s schedule a little bit differently to get some more competitive pitching on the other side to really challenge our hitters. But that’s what our intrasquads are for.”
