UT softball team’s struggles continue
KNOXVILLE — It appeared the seventh-ranked Tennessee softball team had put the woes of the previous weekend behind it Saturday, when the pitching of Matty Moss and Caylan Arnold led to a shutout of No. 6 Georgia.
Sunday’s game indicated the Lady Volunteers still have some problems to work out.
The Bulldogs took the second of a three-game series 9-1 with a strong offensive performance at Lee Stadium in an Easter evening showdown that lasted just six innings because of college softball’s mercy rule.
Tennessee (31-5, 4-4 Southeastern Conference) and Georgia (31-4, 8-3) will settle the series tonight at 7. The Lady Vols are at risk of falling below .500 in conference play after starting the season 30-1 and 3-0 in the SEC.
“I’ve never really been in this situation before the whole time I’ve been here, where we’ve dropped four out of five conference games,” said co-head coach Ralph Weekly, who’s in his 17th season at Tennessee.
The middle of Tennessee’s batting order struggled Sunday, and the Lady Vols’ pitching took a step back after Saturday’s 1-0 victory.
On Sunday, Georgia tagged Arnold (13-3) for eight runs on nine hits in 4 2/3 innings that were spread across two stints. Freshman Gabby Sprang again showed flashes of brilliance by striking out the four batters she retired in relief of Arnold, but that was measured against three walks.
“I am sure that Gabby is going to be a good pitcher,” Weekly said. “I just don’t know when. You could see in that inning that she throws some pitches that people just can’t hit. But you can’t mix that many walks in there.”
South Carolina swept Tennessee last weekend, halting the momentum of a prolific start in which the Lady Vols rose to a No. 2 ranking. In that series, all three of Tennessee’s primary pitchers — Moss, Arnold and Sprang — struggled at times.
Arnold rebounded by throwing four scoreless innings against Georgia on Saturday, when Moss was the winning pitcher and improved to 14-1. But the Bulldogs led off Sunday’s affair with two singles against Arnold and scored two runs in the first inning on their way to an easy victory.
“They just hit her,” Weekly said. “I don’t know any way to sugarcoat it. We just got our butt kicked. That’s the best way to say it.”
Tennessee scored in the second inning when Aubrey Leach singled up the middle, scoring Amanda Ayala, but the Lady Vols left two runners on base. Two more were stranded in the third when Abby Lockman flied out to right field.
Then Georgia opened up a 7-1 lead with three runs in the fourth.
“You can’t do that with a team like Georgia,” Weekly said of stranding runners. “You can’t do that with a lot of teams in this league. We’ve been the kind of team that’s done that to other people. But right now we’ve got to find ourselves.
“The beauty of this is you get to play within 24 hours. We’ve got to just flush it and come out strong.”
Gregg makes mark
Tennessee senior shortstop Meghan Gregg became the program’s all-time leader in RBIs, with 241, when she was hit by a pitch to force home the game-winning run Saturday.