Grit and a Clarke walk-off lift Tennessee into the WCWS semifinals
OKLAHOMA CITY — Some teams just have the grit and willpower to win, and the Tennessee Lady Vols softball team has what it takes.
“I think the keyword, you just said it, is ‘grit,'” Lady Vols head coach Karen Weekly said after Saturday’s Women’s College World Series win over Texas Tech.
The Lady Vols are known as a dominant pitching team, and that showed as Karlyn Pickens and Sage Mardjetko shut down a Red Raiders team that came into the day with 70 runs throughout the postseason.
Pickens went 6.2 innings and gave up just one run on five hits with six strikeouts, and Mardjetko slammed the door with 2.1 hitless innings to earn the win and improve to 16-2.
Texas Tech couldn’t quite figure out the two pitchers. The Red Raiders only scored a run on five hits, and that is something Texas Tech head coach Gerry Glasco took blame for. They couldn’t hit Karlyn.
“I got to give Pickens credit,” Glasco said. “I got to take some blame on this as an offensive coach. Obviously, I didn’t have my team ready to come out and face Karlyn Pickens. She was really good.
“We kept getting on top of the ball instead of inside the ball on the drop ball. We didn’t make that adjustment. That’s on me. It was across the board. All the right-handed hitters, we just weren’t ready for what she was doing.”
You see the all-out mentality of this team on the defensive side. Tennessee made several plays that stopped Texas Tech right in their tracks. Emma Clarke set the tone with a diving catch at second to rob Lagi Quiroga in the third.
In the sixth, Sophia Knight threw out Mia Williams at the plate to wipe out a tying chance, with Elsa Morrison applying the tag. Then in the seventh, Alannah Leach robbed the Red Raiders of a go-ahead hit with a diving catch in left. There was no half effort, and the will to win was as visible as ever.
“They shut our offense down the way that I don’t think we’ve been shut down like that in the postseason,” Glasco said. “I thought their defense made several really nice plays, especially in big situations. I thought their defense came up big for them.”
This Lady Vols team has a championship identity. They won with six runs against Texas and came back to edge Tech 2-1, leaning on their arms before Clarke ended it with a walk-off home run in the ninth. They just get it done in different ways.
“We have won in different ways all season long,” Weekly said. “I think that allows you to stay emotionally calm and stable and not be going up and down, up and down with how the game’s playing out. That was the thing I was most impressed with us today. I think we know we can find a way if we keep at it. We know we have pitching that is going to keep us in a game.”
Two of Tennessee’s biggest swings in Oklahoma City have come from its freshmen. Taelyn Holley broke through first against Texas Tech, taking one of college softball’s best in NiJaree Canady deep in the fifth, two days after Elsa Morrison homered against Texas and Teagan Kavan.
“It’s really cool that freshmen have had two of our most special moments here so far with Elsa a couple days ago and now Tae,” Weekly said. “We knew when we recruited this class, they were really, really special players.”
It also goes beyond the field. Tennessee is a selfless team, and everyone just wants to win. It doesn’t matter who is getting the job done, as long as it gets done. Some players don’t get the time they would like, and for many players across the country, that is hard to accept and may cause drama. Not Maddi Rutan.
“Sounds like a cliché, but they have each other’s back,” Weekly said. “There’s 22 girls who are all fighting for the same thing. Maddi Rutan got some of the biggest we call them bouquets in our locker room for being the best teammate she’s been, even though she got taken out of the lineup a couple weeks ago.
“She’s right on the fence, pouring energy into people, hyping them up. It’s those little things that don’t show up in a stat sheet. Those are the things that allow you to win games when it’s crunch time like it is here.”
Now the grit gets ready for more tests. Tennessee awaits the national semifinals on Monday, where just one win secures a spot in the championship series. If this run has shown anything, it is that the Lady Vols will find a way.
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