Karen Weekly, Karlyn Pickens, and Taelyn Holley break down Tennessee’s Knoxville Regional title
Opening Statement
KAREN WEEKLY: We are elated and exhausted. That was a battle out there, but we certainly expected that when we saw who was in this region. I want to congratulate Northern Kentucky, Indiana, and certainly Virginia. I thought it was just a really well-played regional. Just competitive game after competitive game. Good, clean softball. I have a ton of respect for Joanna and Virginia and how they run their program. We’ve had them here before, and you just know you’re gonna get a really, really good softball team that competes hard, never quits. They’re gonna make everything really difficult for you to earn, and they did that today.
Super proud of these two to my left. Really proud of our whole team, but just for the grind. Karlyn is such a warrior, and she’s been around the block and been in these kinds of games. The bigger the moment in a game, the more she digs deep and steps up. Whether it’s her best day of her stuff or not her best day, you just know that she’s gonna have that extra gear, and it’s really awesome as a coach, and I know being her teammate, to play behind somebody who is going to fight that hard.
And then I just want to say about Tay, before the weekend, I just told her I’m so impressed and proud of how you’ve matured this year. She had a tough spell in the middle of the season, and she just kept working every day. It’s really hard to do that when you don’t get the immediate results. But she just kept her nose down, kept doing extra, kept trying to figure it out. And what you saw today is really the product of probably the last month of working and just having the faith that eventually, I’m gonna get those results. And we couldn’t have had them at a better time. To have a freshman play like she did today, that’s what we saw when we recruited her. That’s what everybody on this team saw in the fall. And I’m just really proud of her maturity.
Q. Karen, you just mentioned Tay and the maturity that she had, but specifically between the last game and today, there were a couple of battles she had at the plate where she was able to get the walk and then get a run to plate. What does that say about the type of player she is that in those moments she’s still able to find success?
KAREN WEEKLY: She’s a pro. I saw that in the fall, and that’s how I described her, is she’s a professional hitter. Sometimes you just have to find your way back to who you are, and that’s the struggle with athletics. Everything doesn’t go the way you want it to, and you can start to doubt and question yourself, and she had the faith and the confidence in herself. Her reset moments today were brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
I think it was the first one, drew the walk. There were so many moments in that at-bat where she reset herself. There was another at-bat later where she got strike two called on her that we all were kind of like, “I don’t know.” And that’s a time any hitter can then force, go out of the zone because they think the umpire’s forcing them out of the zone. She was just like, “Nope.” Every at-bat were just inspiring moments of her resetting herself.
Q. Taelyn, Coach just mentioned your work over the last month. What was kind of your mindset going through that? How did you keep yourself motivated, grounded, and trusting the process that it was going to pay off?
TAELYN HOLLEY: I would just say relying on my teammates and my coaches. They’ve put a lot of effort and work with me. So just being able to trust that and know that, like, one of them’s going to fall, and to build and continue off of that, that’s what I was kind of just looking for. Just looking at whether it was a bad result or a good one, finding something good in that at-bat, whether it was a good swing or a good take. Just being able to trust that and trust that process gives you more confidence in each at-bat, and that’s what happened today.
Q. Coach, between Taelyn and Elsa, I believe they reached base six times today. What is it about this freshman class that is able to contribute down the stretch here to push you on to supers?
KAREN WEEKLY: Just the maturity. If you saw Elsa in the fall, again, super talented, but they both had their moments where you got to adjust to softball at this level. Sometimes the hardest thing to adjust to is every practice matters. They’re not used to practicing this much or every rep in practice needing to be mentally focused, but they’re both individuals who embrace that, and from day one said, “We want to be pushed. We want to be the absolute best we can be, that you can’t be too hard on us. Keep pushing us.” And it’s been really cool to watch both of them just look like upperclassmen in the postseason.
Q. Coach, what do you have to say about your offense, the progression over the weekend? Friday, struggled. Had the big first inning yesterday. Today, found a way to score runs in four out of seven innings. What have you seen over the weekend that drove that progression?
KAREN WEEKLY: We just kept the faith, and we had so much evidence from the season of how good we were offensively, but then we got a lot of evidence this past week. We had a really, really good week-plus of practice after we got home from the SEC tournament. All the credit goes to the coaches and the game plans and the preparation, but these players too. We did not have a bad practice. Sometimes at the end of the season, when you’re practicing more because you’re not playing longer in the SEC tournament, your players can drag through it a little bit, and they didn’t.
They came every day ready to work, ready to get better, and we got better. This week, we had our best practices of the entire year, and the growth we made in one week was pretty remarkable. I think they just had so much faith in themselves, again, because of what they’ve done through the year, but then because of what they saw out of themselves this past week.
Q. Taelyn, you fell into that 0-2 count on that home run. Can you just walk us through that at-bat, what you were looking to see and what you actually saw?
TAELYN HOLLEY: Our game plan was staying slow, trying to just find a piece of getting the ball out in front, catching out in front. The first pitch just came and she had it hit 66 the whole time. Just being able to take that, and then obviously the second strike called wasn’t something I was looking for. Just being able to reset in that moment and just look for a pitch that I can drive or just get a good barrel on.
Q. Karlyn, obviously Elsa’s done a lot of great stuff at the plate for you guys, but I’m just curious, as her being a freshman catcher and coming in this season as a starter, what do you appreciate about the little things that she does for you as a pitcher, and what makes her so impressive as a catcher?
KARLYN PICKENS: Elsa’s just come such a long way from the fall, coming in knowing as a freshman she had some big shoes to fill, and she took that with pride. She’s done everything she can to be great behind the plate, which she has been. She’s just making me comfortable. That’s kind of a catcher’s job. We have a great relationship on the field. She’ll tell me how it is if I miss my spot, and I think that’s one of the biggest things, and she’s done an amazing job with that, always questioning how she can get better. I just see all the work that she’s put in in practice, not only for catching, but offensively as well.
Q. Taelyn, building off the last question, your home run, it’s your fifth one of the season. There was a moment where it went over the fence and you looked over to the dugout. What was that moment like, kind of seeing your teammates celebrate and meeting them at the plate?
TAELYN HOLLEY: Just being able to pick up my teammates. I just told Gabby, I was like, “Hey, I got you no matter what. I’m gonna get you in here.” So being able to look at my teammates and just know that they were celebrating behind me and that we were having Karlyn’s back and Karlyn was having our back was just something that you can build confidence off of. And who wouldn’t want to play behind Karlyn? Just being able to trust her confidence and trust her preparation to build into my bat and then just seeing and celebrating with that team, like you can’t celebrate with a different team like that.
Q. Coach, after you guys heard your regional pairings, you talked about how you never take those moments for granted. Off to your fourth straight super regional, I know you’re not taking it for granted. What does it mean to you, and what does it say about this program, just the continued success each and every year?
KAREN WEEKLY: It’s all about the players. You go recruit great players, and you just develop them, and they buy in. It’s them. You don’t win if you don’t have great players, and we’ve had a long history of great players, and I know that it matters to these guys to play at a high level. I’m not just talking about performance, but how they represent themselves on the field because they want to make the alumni group proud of them. And they do, and it’s really cool to see that relationship.
That’s what allows us to do this. You talked about taking it for granted. I think we were just so darn tired at the end of the game, that it can look like, oh, we’re just relieved to win. No, it was exhausting. But there is a standard in this program, and they all know it. It’s that fine line, like, “We need to celebrate this,” because it’s not easy, but they also know this is where we expect to be, and we expect to be moving on to a super.
Q. Coach, and Karlyn, you could also answer this, too, but I don’t think people talk a lot about just how sad this weekend can be for a lot of teams, and you guys have not experienced that the last four years. What is the emotional element of this weekend, and how have you seen your program handle it? And then Karlyn, four for four for you, how have you been able to kind of put that on the back burner and not worry, or maybe you do worry about this potentially being the last time you do get to play softball together?
KARLYN PICKENS: I think postseason really just, like, you’re playing for your team, and that’s really the bottom line. I think when you see teams really just playing for each other the most, like even us, this is the most fun I think that we’ve had in a long time, just going out there and knowing that we’re playing for the girls who are left and our right.
I think that’s what makes it so emotional is because you realize what’s really in front of you and all you’ve worked, you know, that whole season is leading up to just one game. So yeah, postseason’s ruthless. Virginia, they played a great game and it’s definitely sad as a senior to see them being emotional, walking off the field. But great game.
KAREN WEEKLY: Karlyn hasn’t experienced losing in regionals, and that, she’s probably a reason why we haven’t experienced losing in regionals in the last four years. But I did in ’21 and ’22, and it’s a gut punch. It’s really, really, really hard. I feel for those, I guess, 48 teams that are not gonna be playing after this weekend. When the selection show came around, hey, there’s only 64 teams that get to keep playing, so that’s like 240 or so that are already packing their bags.
I think it’s good for us to always be reminded to be grateful for that. Yes, we put in the work, but it takes a lot of things to win right now. It takes talent. It takes people like Tay who just kind of keep working all year. It takes a little luck going your way. It takes you not having a crazy injury. You saw that happen this weekend, too. There’s a lot of things that go into it, and we’re never gonna stop being grateful for it.
Q. Karlyn, Coach mentioned being exhausted after the game, but it seems like you get better as the game goes on. Can you take us into your mindset and how you’re able to navigate through the ups and downs of the game and just finish strong?
KARLYN PICKENS: The main thing for me is just always competing. Kind of having a mindset of like, we’re down one or like zero-zero game. I think that’s what keeps my mind in the right spots and also just like talking with Megan, my pitching coach, learning from previous innings, where I can improve, go in the bullpen, figure it out. I think if you’re treating the game like you want to learn from it, then it keeps you competing and in the right mindset.
Q. Karen, what do you anticipate the focus being this week preparing for supers?
KAREN WEEKLY: Right now, rest. Tomorrow, we just need this big rest and recovery day. We won’t know till later tonight if we’re playing Thursday or Friday. We know who we’re playing. Georgia, we didn’t play them this year, but obviously being in the SEC, we know what they’ve done and what kind of team they are. One of the best offenses in the SEC this year and in the country.
If you’re the best in the SEC, you’re the best in the country. We also have the best pitching staff. They have a really well-rounded pitching staff, I think probably a little bit deeper than they’ve had in the last couple years. We have a dynamic offense that is hitting its stride when we need to be hitting our stride. So it’s supers. There’s not a whole lot that separates seven and 10, so it’s gonna be a battle.
Q. Karlyn, when you got on campus, Tennessee hadn’t been to supers since 2019, hadn’t been to World Series since 2015. You’re now going to four straight supers with a chance for a third World Series trip. What has it meant to you to help bring this program back to that place where it is annually a contender, and is there anything that stood out to you about what it’s taken to do that?
KARLYN PICKENS: I definitely say it wouldn’t all be me. There’s been so many great girls come through this program that Karen has recruited. I think that falls back on just the culture we have here. Those girls, my senior year, they kind of put that into action, and we’ve just been trying to uphold that ever since. Just being able to set that standard of what we want for this program and see that happen so very often now, it’s amazing, and I’ve just been really thankful to be part of it.
Q. Taelyn, this offense hasn’t scored more than five runs in back-to-back games in over a month, and it’s done it now in the postseason. What’s allowed the offense to click right now? And then for Karlyn, what does this run support do for this pitching staff that has runs come at a premium?
TAELYN HOLLEY: Before games, when we go and pray, Gabby would speak to the team and be like, “Okay, guys, let’s go back to when we played Kentucky and really just dive into that first inning. Let’s attack them first and not have to wait to get punched.” Being able to hear that from somebody who’s returned here and who has been in supers and in regionals, just being able to build off of that.
I think all of us go up there and our at-bats are for the people on deck or the people who are on base. I feel like we’re just really playing for each other these games and really just building off each other’s at-bats. We’re learning from one another really well and being able to make those adjustments in between at-bats. Just being able to trust one another and know that we have each other’s back.
KARLYN PICKENS: I’ll just say the same. There’s something really special as a pitcher when maybe you don’t have the best inning and then someone on your team comes back in and gets a home run, whatever it is, scores a run, and they’re, like, telling you, “I got your back.” That’s really powerful, and I think that’s what just allows this team to be so contagious, is we’re just playing for each other.
We’re constantly saying like, “Hey, I got your back. I got you.” That gives not only our pitchers a lot of confidence, but also our offense when us pitchers are just saying, “We got your back too out there.” So it’s really cool to see what this team’s gonna accomplish.
