Tennessee softball made a statement in its series win over Alabama.
The No. 8 Lady Vols (40-8, 14-7 SEC) opened with a 12-0 loss in five innings to the No. 3 Tide (44-6, 16-5), the second-worst margin in program history.
Then Tennessee turned around and won two straight, sending Alabama to its first shutout loss of the season 2-0 in Game 2 and beating the Tide 4-1 in Game 3.
The series with Alabama had significant postseason implications for Tennessee, which needed a big win to put itself in position to secure one of the top-eight seeds in the NCAA Tournament.
The top 16 seeds host NCAA regionals, and the top eight host super regionals. Clinching the series against Alabama means the Lady Vols have all but locked up a top-eight seed.
"It's huge. These kind of series are an opportunity, because that is a team that's ranked higher than us, that is having an incredible season, that is going to be a top-eight seed that has an opportunity to win a national championship," Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said. "For us to be able to win two out of three this time of year is big time."
Tennessee is No. 8 in the RPI rankings and 16-6 in ranked matchups, including wins over UCLA, Nebraska and Florida State, and series wins over LSU, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Alabama.
Tennessee has arguably the best and deepest pitching staff in the country, and it proved it has two pitchers it can rely on in big moments.
Both Sage Mardjetko and Karlyn Pickens were stellar in the two wins. Mardjetko (11-1) threw a one-hitter in her fifth shutout of the season, looking like a starter who can win a game at the Women's College World Series.
Pickens has been up and down since returning from injury, but she was at her best in Game 3. After she gave up a solo home run and put a runner on second in the seventh inning, she struck out three straight for the win. Pickens (12-5) had 11 strikeouts with three hits allowed, one hit by pitch and one earned run in five innings.
"Karlyn pitched like Karlyn tonight," Weekly said. "When she threw that first changeup and just nailed it — nailed the speed, nailed the location, got the batter off time, I was like, OK, I think this is the night that we're back to Karlyn."
Things are coming together for the Lady Vols at the right time, and their offense found ways to score against one of the country's best pitching staffs.
"Everybody knows we've been struggling, you know? And the thing is, they've never stopped fighting," Weekly said. "You look at Saturday — I mean, I'm sure a lot of people wrote us off and said, well, this team's done, and we didn't write ourselves off. We never have. We just kept believing."
The run-rule loss made Weekly rethink her approach. She went back to the message she preached to the team in February, which she had thought was getting boring and repetitive.
But hearing Weekly constantly talk about communicating at a high level, having great body language and eye contact, playing with their eyes and breathing was what Tennessee needed.
"I just had to get back to being who I am, which is consistent and boring," she said. "I told them, that's all I'm going to talk about the rest of the season. I'm not one for big, hype-up pregame speeches. I don't believe in it. You just show up every day and you consistently do good things."
Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee women’s athletics reporter for Knox News. Email: cora.hall@knoxnews.com; X: @corahalll; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social. Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks:knoxnews.com/subscribe
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Why Tennessee softball needed to win series vs Alabama for postseason