Tennessee's softball team set a program record last May by earning the No. 4 overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
It was a standard that lasted one year.
Karen Weekly's Lady Vols have been pegged as the No. 3 seed in this spring's 64-team field, trailing only outgoing Big 12 Conference and incoming Southeastern Conference members Texas and Oklahoma. The Lady Vols are 40-10 overall and have won two consecutive SEC regular-season championships, claiming this year's crown by two games over Florida, the NCAA tournament's No. 4 overall seed.
"I honestly didn't know that," Weekly said Sunday night in a news conference after the bracket was revealed. "I would have thought back when Monica (Abbott) was here that we might have gotten seeded higher. I am very proud of this program, and obviously I've invested a lot of years and a lot of my life into Lady Vols softball.
"Ultimately it's all about the players. Every win we get is because the players go out there and win. They're the ones who put it on the line every single day."
All 13 SEC softball programs — Vanderbilt doesn't field a team — qualified for the NCAA tourney for a fourth time since 2017.
Last season's Lady Vols finished with a 51-10 record and lost in the College World Series semifinals to Florida State. The Seminoles then lost to Oklahoma in the best-of-three championship series.
Tennessee has received a top-16 seed every year since the seeding system for the 64-team extravaganza began in 2005, and the latest Knoxville Regional contains the top-seeded Lady Vols along with second-seeded Miami of Ohio (48-7), third-seeded Virginia (32-18) and fourth-seeded Dayton (33-19). The Knoxville Regional begins Friday at noon with Miami of Ohio facing Virginia, with Tennessee and Dayton set to square off at 2:30.
Both of Friday's matchups are available on the ESPN+ streaming service.
"I think it's just us focusing on us and the core values that we have here at Tennessee," Lady Vols sophomore and SEC pitcher of the year Karlyn Pickens said Sunday when asked about this season's success. "We love each player to our left and to our right, and we know where we want to be in the next couple of weeks."
The Lady Vols reached the College World Series championship series as the No. 5 overall seed in 2007, when they lost to Arizona. They returned as the No. 7 seed in 2013, losing to Oklahoma.
Weekly doesn't believe her players will take anything for granted this weekend, pointing out that the Lady Vols failed to make it out of the Knoxville Regional in 2021 and again in 2022. There is also Tennessee's most recent result, with that being last Thursday night's 2-1 loss to LSU in the SEC tournament quarterfinals.
Tennessee entered last year's NCAA tournament after sweeping the league's regular season and tournament for the first time in program history.
"That's kind of the double-edged sword with the SEC tournament," said Weekly, who recently was named the league's coach of the year for a fourth time. "Sometimes it's not bad to be able to get a little bit more rest, but you also reflect on how that loss stung and that the next one will sting a whole lot harder.
"They know we can't have another game like that."
Vols remain No. 1
Tony Vitello's Vols remained at No. 1 in Monday's updated D1 Baseball rankings following a week in which they struggled against Queens before taking two of three at state-rival Vanderbilt.
Tennessee is followed in the top five by Kentucky, Arkansas, Clemson and Texas A&M. Georgia moved up from No. 15 to No. 9 after sweeping South Carolina in Columbia, and the Bulldogs are No. 6 in the latest Baseball America rankings that also have the Vols at the top.
Historical Dawgs
A traveling exhibit of University of Georgia athletic materials is coming to the Dalton-Whitfield County Library on Tuesday, May 21, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. The exhibit, titled "UGA Athletics in Your Town," is headed by Jason Hasty, the athletics history specialist at Georgia's Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
"There are Georgia alumni and Georgia fans in every corner of our state," Hasty said. "This traveling exhibit is a great way to take some of the most interesting artifacts we have in the UGA Athletic Association archive to communities all across Georgia for a fun, family-friendly event."
There is no cost to attend the exhibit.
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.