Tennessee softball's season ends in WCWS semifinal loss to Florida State

OKLAHOMA CITY — Tennessee softball's season ended in the Women's College World Series semifinal on Monday. No. 3 seed Florida State eliminated the No. 4 seed Lady Vols with a 5-1 win at Hall of Fame Stadium.

Tennessee, which dropped a game to Oklahoma before beating Oklahoma State to stay alive, needed to beat the Seminoles twice to advance to the best-of-three championship series.

Instead, Florida State (58-9) will move on to face Oklahoma in the national championship, and Tennessee (51-10) finished its season short of its first title series since 2013.

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Florida State bullpen wins out

Neither Florida State nor Tennessee's starters went longer than 2⅓ innings before being pulled. The Lady Vols' Payton Gottshall, who re-entered the game late, allowed two runs on five hits in 3⅓ innings, with no walks and no strikeouts. Florida State gave Mack Leonard her first start of the NCAA Tournament, and she threw two innings with a hit, an earned run, two walks and no strikeouts.

Both teams went to the bullpen for the third inning, and both put freshmen relievers in the circle. For Tennessee, it was Karlyn Pickens, who had started in the loss against Oklahoma. She tossed two innings with two strikeouts, a hit and an earned run that came after she left the game.

Ashley Rogers came on to relieve her in the fifth and gave up an RBI single to Jahni Kerr that let Florida State take a 3-1 lead. The following inning, she gave up a leadoff walk and a two-run home run with two outs.

Florida State's freshman reliever was Makenna Reid, who threw two scoreless innings with a hit, two walks and two strikeouts before giving way to ace Kathryn Sandercock in the fifth.

Sandercock shut down Tennessee to finish the game, throwing three scoreless innings with one hit and four strikeouts.

Home-run hitting makes the difference

All of but one run came on the long ball. Tennessee got on the board first with a solo home run by Zaida Puni, who hit her sixth homer of the NCAA Tournament in the bottom of the first inning.

That was the only run for Tennessee. Meanwhile, Florida State added three home runs.

Michaela Edenfield, who entered the game leading the Seminoles with 12 home runs, hit one to left-center to lead off the top of the second. In the next inning, another leadoff shot by Bethaney Keen gave Florida State the lead for good.

One Florida State run scored with a base hit in the fifth, and then it was back to bombs: Hallie Wacaser hit a two-run homer in the sixth to make it 5-1.