Dan Fleser
Texas took the pop out of Tennessee’s bats on Monday and put an end to the Lady Vols’ season and their puncher’s chance at the Women’s College World Series.
Pitchers Mac Morgan and Teagan Kavan combined to allow only three hits, thereby reducing the elimination game’s already slim margins for Tennessee. Katie Stewart’s fourth-inning fly ball cleared the left-field fence by a couple feet. The softball seemingly carried to the moon, given its impact on Texas’ 2-0 victory in Oklahoma City.
“The key is can you string a few things together,” Lady Vols coach Karen Weekly said, “and we just weren’t able to do that.”
The Lady Vols put a lot of good swings into recovering from last Thursday’s stunning walk-off loss to Oklahoma to be one of the final four teams standing after the weekend. They scored seven runs in their first at-bat against Florida on Friday night. They had to beat UCLA twice on Sunday, first with Taylor Pannell’s two-run homer and finally with Laura Mealer’s bases-loaded line drive single in the bottom of the ninth.
In between those two clutch hits, of course, was the drama that ensued when UCLA’s Megan Grant failed to step on home plate after slugging a two-out, two-run game-tying homer in the top of the seventh. Teammate Alexis Ramirez took Grant by the arm and led her back to touch the plate. Since Ramirez was not a baserunner on the play, the assistance broke NCAA rules. Tennessee challenged. After a lengthy review, the home run was upheld because the assistance was not reviewable according to Appendix G of the softball rulebook.
“(During the review) We talked about if it comes back and it goes against us and we’re tied up, then we keep playing,” Lady Vols coach Karen Weekly said. “So, we just kept putting them in that mind-set, I think, prepare for the worst and if the best happens, great.”
In the process, they might have depleted what was left of their mental toughness reserves.They didn’t muster the same resilience against Morgan, who was arguably a surprise starter over Kavan, the Longhorns ace. On paper, the strategy favored Tennessee, which had scored 15 of its 19 WCWS runs in the first three innings of games. Although Morgan allowed all three Tennessee hits in her four innings of work and four baserunners total, just one Lady Vol reached second base. Furthermore, her drop ball factored into four strikeouts and six ground-ball outs.
“I was telling myself just to get the ground balls like I did,” Morgan said. “Strikeouts happen and that’s fun, but my job is to get ground balls.”
In the process, Tennessee hitting coach Craig Snider got riled up enough over balls and strikes to be ejected.
“There’s a rule if assistants come out and argue that things are automatic,” Weekly said. “You would hope that you get a little bit of leeway because of the stage you’re on right here.”
No breaks, not from the umpire or from Kavan, who finished by issuing just one walk in three innings.
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Dan Fleser is a 1980 graduate of the University of Missouri, who has covered University of Tennessee athletics since 1988. He is a member of the Tennessee Sportswriters, U.S Basketball Writers and Greater Knoxville Sports Halls of Fame. He can be reached at danfleser3@gmail.com.