Tennessee softball quickly emerged as the No. 1 team in the country this season. What has garnered the most attention about the start is the trio of pitchers the Lady Vols boast. According to head coach Karen Weekly, she believes that Karlyn Pickens, Erin Nuwer and Sage Mardjetko would all be aces on any other team in the country.
So far, that’s proven to look true. However, shutdown pitching can only get you so far if there’s not an offense to back it up. That’s what looks different about this team. Through three weeks of non-conference play, this appears to be the most complete team Weekly has had.
One of the key pieces to getting the bats going and putting up crooked numbers has been a somewhat recent addition to the coaching staff. Craig Snider joined with the reputation of being one of the top offensive minds in the country ahead of last season. Now that he’s had a year to implement his ideas, it’s starting to show results.
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“It takes a while when you have a change in coaches, for your team to really understand and adopt what a new coach is bringing,” Weekly said. “And I think you saw that last year, there were certain things that we started to get better at, but not completely. And this year, you’re really seeing his philosophy come to fruition, which is we’re really going to focus on our approach at the plate. We’re going to focus on our ability to handle different types of pitchers, our ability to adjust quickly when a pitching change is made, our ability to execute situationally. We’re not relying on one thing, we’re not just waiting for the home run to happen.
“And I think you’re seeing that play out in our offensive production and how we’re winning and scoring runs in a lot of different ways. We’ve got speed. We have the ability to hit and run, to bunt and run, to sac-bunt somebody over, to execute a slap that’s going to move a runner, to run a ground ball go play with runners on third. And then the home runs have come just through really buying into what you’re looking for and being willing, as a hitter, to sell out on that. I think that’s where Craig makes the most impact, is just getting the players to believe in it and to trust and to understand, ‘Hey, as long as you’re committed to what you’re looking for, the results don’t matter.’ And that’s where you see the alignment with our coaches. We’re very process-focused. It’s not about the results. It’s about the process that they adopt when they’re in there.”
This season, Tennessee is hitting at a .340 average as a team in its 14-0 start. This includes bouts with ranked teams such as No. 5 Oregon, No. 6 UCLA, No. 7 Florida State, No. 11 Nebraska, No. 21 Liberty and No. 23 Florida Atlantic.
The Lady Vols have also totalled 113 runs on 118 hits and 20 home runs. One of the beneficiaries has been infielder Ella Dodge, who is hitting .353 with a team-high 18 RBI, 15 runs, five doubles and four homers.
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“Craig is awesome,” Dodge said. “He is very intentional of taking the time to get to know each and every one of us. He’s not a this is how you do one thing all the time, it has to be perfect. He’ll adapt to what you need. I just think it’s super cool to see it all come to fruition and to see his work showing in what we’re doing. I love his philosophy and doing all those things. Just truly selling out for what he says, it’s just really cool to see it all play out.”
Now, the offense will be put to the test again this weekend. In Tennessee’s home opener, it’ll host Appalachian State (twice), Penn State (twice) and North Carolina Central at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium from Friday through Sunday.
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