Lady Vols Super Regional Game 2 Transcript: Karen Weekly, Mardjetko, Knight
The Tennessee softball program clinched another trip to Oklahoma City, with a 2-1 win over the Georgia Bulldogs at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium. Sage Mardjetko pitched a 5.2-inning gem, and Sophia Knight hit her second home run of the season, in as many days.
Below is everything Weekly, Margetko, and Knight said from the NCAA Division I softball Knoxville Super Regional championship.
Opening Statement
KAREN WEEKLY: Wow. Just so proud of the Lady Vols. So proud of my team, the staff, all the work that went into getting ready for postseason. Big congratulations to Georgia. They are an incredibly tough opponent, which we expected. It’s super regionals. We know what they do. Even though we didn’t play them in the SEC, we followed them. Tony does an incredible job. The games were nail biters. There were moments in the games that could go either way, and the young ladies to my left really stepped up in those moments and just met them head on and shifted things in our favor. Again, just super excited to be going back to OKC.
KAREN WEEKLY: I love it for our seniors to be going three out of their four years. And for our freshmen, I told them, you have no idea how much fun you’re about to have. There’s no place better to be this time of year. Just excited to go there with this team and that we get to be together for another couple weeks. All right. We’ll take questions now.
Q&A
Q (Cora, to Sophia): Second day in a row with a homer. Just how did that one feel, and how did it feel to deliver the game-winning swing for your team to get to the World Series?
SOPHIA KNIGHT: It felt amazing. I could go on and on, but gosh, it was just like such a fun game. Looking to our left and right, just having fun with the sport that we love and just not thinking too much about anything.
Q (Rhiannon, to Sophia): As Karen said, the freshmen will be new, but this will be new for you, too. How is it to make — you’re going to be going to the Women’s College World Series after transferring. How does that feel to know that?
SOPHIA KNIGHT: I’m just super excited. I don’t even know what to expect, so I’m just like, I’m here for the ride, and I’m just so excited to be part of the ride and part of this journey, especially with this team, because there isn’t a team I’d want to do this with rather than this one.
Q (Charles, to Sage): How does it feel to come into the game and give the solid 5.2 innings you did and pretty much shut Georgia’s offense down that’s been good all season?
SAGE MARDJETKO: Erin paved the way. She started the game very well. And just coming in and doing my job, executing the pitches and the game plan, not making the moment too big, even in that last inning when there’s a lot of excitement going on, just staying present in the moment and taking it pitch by pitch.
Q (Casey, to Coach Weekly): Just any words you have to describe how proud you are of Sophia’s play this weekend?
KAREN WEEKLY: Before postseason, we talked about all the regular season stats are out the window. Nothing matters. Everybody starts with a clean slate. It’s zero-zero. So don’t dwell on how well you might have done in the regular season or maybe things that you weren’t happy with because everybody starts fresh, and somebody’s gonna do something surprising. There’s gonna be something that lifts us when we need it that nobody expects. And obviously, she’s the one. The home run yesterday to get us going, and then the difference in the game today. I’m super proud of her.
KAREN WEEKLY: What makes these guys so easy to coach is when I say, “Hey, I think this. I think let’s try this,” they go, “Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.” They buy in. Nothing you do as a coach, nothing they say to each other is gonna matter if they don’t buy in and trust the staff and trust each other. And she had full trust in what we wanted her to do this weekend, and man, she was a game changer.
Q (Rylee, to Coach Weekly): Just elaborating a little more, how brilliant was Sage today in the circle, her performance to get this clinching series?
KAREN WEEKLY: Absolutely incredible. Just keeping them off balance. If I get my hitters right, I think Roose might have struck out three times today. I don’t know. You look at hitters who have been very dominant throughout the season, and what Sage — Erin starting off and then Sage coming in, how they just kept mixing speeds and how she kept mixing her locations, and you could see it was getting hard for them to sit on anything and settle into anything.
KAREN WEEKLY: I’m just so proud of Sage’s journey since she’s been here. When you watch her now, she competes with so much joy, and that wasn’t the case last year. She was really hard on herself. This year she’s learned to push herself, but also to go out there and just let go and understand, I can push myself in practice all I want, but when I get in the game, I just need to trust myself. It’s inspired everybody around her. It’s the reason that I have so much faith in her, and I know she’s going to come through in those moments because she wants to be in them, and she’s just in the right frame of mind to go attack anybody.
Q (Paige, to Sage and Coach Weekly): You two shared a few long embraces after the game. We can start with Sage. I’m wondering what that moment reflects from your relationship with Karen this season.
SAGE MARDJETKO: Just how much trust and confidence she has in me. Like she said, it hasn’t been an easy two years so far. But just knowing that it’s all part of the plan and that she has so much trust in me, and not just me, but this entire team.
KAREN WEEKLY: I think I’m just so proud of her growth because getting better on the field is one thing. Everybody can kinda do that. But Sage has made a real transformation in her mental and emotional approach to softball and how she just lets go. That’s probably a deeper story to do with her, but it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not easy to look yourself in the mirror and see where your red flags are and see what is holding you back. A lot of people can see it, but they won’t attack it, and she attacked it. That’s why I just told her, “I just wanna hug you as long as possible,” because when you see young women just grow as people like that, the things that Sage has done this year and the way she’s changed, it’s gonna serve her more in life than it ever will on a softball field, and that’s what makes me the happiest.
Q (Elijah, to Coach Weekly): Most teams reflect off their head coach, but you have fun with these guys. You actually griddied after the game, and I was kind of laughing up there. How much have their energy as a young group rubbed off on you this season?
KAREN WEEKLY: You laughed at my griddy, huh? It’s not very good. I haven’t done it in a while. Need practice.
KAREN WEEKLY: I love coming to work every day. No matter what is going on in your life, you come and you get to spend time around these guys. Every day Sage greets me with a big smile, and they all do. I’m just really proud to — it’s a privilege to be their coach. It’s a privilege. I don’t take for granted the faith and trust they put in me and the rest of our staff. That’s what has made this so fun. I said in the fall, they’re really good learners. They do what we ask them to do, and that’s all you can ask as a coach. They keep me young, and I’ll griddy, I’ll do whatever. If it makes them smile, if it makes them play with joy and love for each other, whatever it takes, I’m about it.
Q (Reporter, to Coach Weekly): Third trip in four years to OKC. Not a lot of teams can achieve that. I’m just wondering from your perspective, when you’re seeing the team celebrate, hold up the ticket, slam the 10 on the wall for the 10th trip, what’s going through your mind in that moment? Is it reflection, relief?
KAREN WEEKLY: The first thing I thought of was our senior class, and everybody talks about Carlin, and rightfully so. Carlin has earned everything and she’s a huge reason that during her four years here we’re gonna be in OKC three of them. But you cannot discount the contributions that Cam Sarvis and Jackie Kirkpatrick make to this team.
KAREN WEEKLY: I hope everybody in this room watched Jackie’s rounding third video with Brian Rice leading into Senior Day, where she talked about, “My job and the thing that I focus on every day is making sure that my pitchers are ready to go when they come out of the bullpen, that they are pumped up, that they know their stuff’s working, that I fill them with confidence.” What an amazing servant warrior, that she takes so much pride in that and she just pours into the pitchers.
KAREN WEEKLY: Then Cam Sarvis, another one that’s just an unsung hero, the way she just controls the dugout. Cam will be the first one to say, “Hey, we need to do this,” or, “We need to get on that,” or, “Hey, we need to help out this player.” They play through the people on the field and you never see that in a stat sheet. A lot of players that don’t play, maybe they don’t complain, but they don’t really add something, and those two add so much to our team. They’re just inspirational role models for how to be a Lady Vol and living out our core values and our mission every single day.
Q (Cora, to Sage): After you guys got through the handshake line, Emma was, like, hugging you and basically, like, shaking you. Can you talk about the emotions on the field celebrating and the kind of teammate that Emma is and the energy she brings, how valuable that is for you guys?
SAGE MARDJETKO: Emma is what it means to be a great teammate. She is just everyone’s biggest cheerleader, no matter what is going on with her personally or on the field, off the field. So she’s just incredibly proud of every single one of us anytime we play the way that she knows we can. Emma’s been one of my closest friends these past two years, so she’s seen my growth personally. I think a lot of it just comes back to being proud of your people.
Q (Charles, to Coach Weekly): In an era where a ton of offense is what people wanna see, a lot of runs scored, sells tickets, how great does it make you feel to know you have a team that can go out and win the two-to-one ballgames and worry nothing of it?
KAREN WEEKLY: Offense sells tickets, but pitching and defense wins games. If you don’t have great pitching, it all starts in the circle. That’s why they call this game fast pitch. Ralph said for many years, they don’t call it fast hit, they don’t call it fast run or fast field, they call it fast pitch. You’ve gotta have warriors in the circle, people with really good stuff, but then big-time competitors. Some of the toughest competitors on our team are in the circle. That’s a lot of the reason we are where we are.
KAREN WEEKLY: The job that Megan Rhodes-Smith does with them, I can’t say enough about the way she handles these pitchers, the way she meets them where they are, coaches each of them as individuals. Then we put a lot of pride in our defense. Bella Fough, another one that doesn’t show up in a stat sheet, but the number of runs she saves us, the number of rallies that don’t even start because of her steady defense at short and some of the amazing plays she makes, how she’s grown in her communication and her energy and being a great leader in the infield, those are things that we recognize in our circle. They’re not gonna get the headlines, but that’s okay, because we know what’s important.
Q (Rhiannon, to Coach Weekly): How beneficial is it to have the series done as early as it is and get that extra rest time leading into Oklahoma City, since it’s usually such a rush to get to Oklahoma City?
KAREN WEEKLY: It’s awesome. I’ll never forget 2010, we went up to Michigan, and we had the Thursday, Friday, Saturday. We were a 15 seed, and they were a two seed, and we upset them in one and two. There was nothing like just sitting back on Saturday and Sunday and watching everybody else play. How many series haven’t even started yet? Three? We’re done, and there’s three series that haven’t even started. So it’s gonna be nice for us to get some rest, to get a little bit of extra practice time in.
KAREN WEEKLY: And then I’m really grateful, ’cause I’m on the All-American Committee, and I gotta fly to OKC early Sunday morning and sit in a meeting for two days. So I’m excited to have a day off tomorrow and time to pack.
Q (Paige, to Sage): At the end of the game, what was it like when you saw the number 10 sticker come out and then to run out to the outfield wall and slam it against the wall? What relief and sense of reward was it to be able to partake in that?
SAGE MARDJETKO: Words can’t describe it. It’s just the greatest feeling ever. This is something you don’t just work for all season, but this is something you dream about when you’re young playing travel ball. So just to come out here and play with these girls and get to say you’re going to the World Series is not something that a lot of people get to do and say. Being able to do it with this group of girls is just awesome and words can’t describe it.
Q (Steven, to Sophia): Obviously coming over from Boise State and being joined by Mackenzie out there. Firstly, how special is it to share this moment and this journey with her? And then secondly, can we get a grade on Coach’s griddy as well?
SOPHIA KNIGHT: Her griddy’s a 10 out of 10. Just seeing Karen do anything, just being fun for us and our young team, it’s just so fun.
SOPHIA KNIGHT: When you’re talking about Mack and me being together, it almost, like, made me tear up. I’m just so proud of her, and it was not an easy decision. It never really is to transfer somewhere because you’re going into the unknown. It took a lot for both of us to just even put ourselves out there, and it is just the most heartwarming feeling to just do that with her. Oh, I’m just so proud of her.
Q (Rylee, to Sage and Coach Weekly): Same pitching staff, you guys get to Oklahoma City last year. But now y’all have the best ERA in the country combined. You’re back there. How much more confidence, Sage, do you have in yourself, this pitching staff, and Coach as well, with this trip this year?
SAGE MARDJETKO: We always knew the staff was really good. There was just a little bit of immaturity last year with me and Erin, and now we have that year under our belt here. So that just made us so much better and working closely with not just Megan, but also Carlin, just picking both their brains about what it takes to be the best and how to get to the World Series and what your team needs from you in any given day or moment, has definitely helped us be the best pitching staff in the nation.
KAREN WEEKLY: I think she said it. We always knew that the talent was there. Erin being a freshman last year went through some growing pains. Sage being her first year here at Tennessee went through some growing pains. Last year, we probably put more innings than we wanted on Carlin. Carlin can throw all day long. But we wanted to have a staff that was a little bit more balanced, and I think that’s bore out this weekend. What we did all year and putting them in all kinds of different situations made it possible for Erin to start that game with confidence, and Sage to come in and pitch in that kind of a moment.
KAREN WEEKLY: I don’t think you could ignore Elsa’s contribution to that, too. You don’t have a great pitching staff without a great catcher. When you see the growth in her from the fall to now, she’s just a freshman. A freshman coming in and you’re telling her, “Hey, you need to command the relationship with these pitchers.” And, oh, you got Carlin Pickens, All-American. You got Sage Marjecco, stud. You got Erin Neuer, stud. That took a while for Elsa, but she responded to every way we pushed her to get better. You look at how many balls she blocked up today. These guys love throwing drop balls, and they have 100% confidence in throwing that pitch because they know that Elsa’s going to keep it in front. That’s another one that a lot of contribution that you’re not gonna see on a stat sheet. Her communication, her energy on the field has just skyrocketed for us the back half of the season.
Q (Cora, to Coach Weekly — final question): I know it’s hard to put into words, but watching what this team has gone through this season, the start, the downs, the coming back up, to watch them get to celebrate on this field, how would you describe your emotions and the scene that you saw and what it meant after what they did this season?
KAREN WEEKLY: There’s just something special when a group of people believe, and no matter what you go through, they continue to believe, and they believe in each other, they believe in the vision. There’s times when it would be easy to lose hope. We definitely had our tough times this year. But it’s probably been the best group at having hard conversations with each other and having hard conversations as a team, and keeping those conversations in the inner circle. I’ve always said that if you don’t have adversity, that’s what scares me more than anything. I welcome the adversity because you always come out stronger if you handle adversity well and you just attack it head-on, and they’ve done that.
