Tennessee softball remains undefeated with just Belmont left on the schedule before the start of SEC play. Ahead of the week of games, No. 1 Lady Vols head coach Karen Weekly met with the media.
Weekly was asked about the Belmont matchup, upcoming series with LSU and more.
Here’s what she said.
More From RTI: WATCH: No. 1 Tennessee Softball HC Karen Weekly Previews a Tough Belmont Matchup, SEC Opener
On Belmont star pitcher Maya Johnson
“Lot of movement in multiple areas of the zone. So she can go up with quite a bit of run on her arm side, good drop ball down, mixing the change up. Works both sides of the plate. She’s a tough matchup, and that’s why she beat Georgia, she beat Mississippi State. And I told the team the same thing you just said in our huddle up on Sunday, Tuesday night, we’re going to face the best picture we’ve seen all year. Well, I guess Jordy Frahm is pretty darn good, too. But on that level and there’s nobody thinking about LSU right now. I can tell you that. All eyes are on Belmont.”
On what she wants from the offense vs. Belmont
“It’s a great opportunity for us to get better at what I didn’t think we were good at this past weekend. This past weekend, we were really good at staying very composed when we got behind. I mean, how crazy is it, three games we give up a home run in the first inning, three different pitchers, and we’re down. So it’s kind of cool that we got ourselves in that situation, and we had to work our way out of it and find a way to win ball games. What we didn’t do well was stay committed to the game plan, and it’s even more important when you are facing a really good pitcher, because if you’re up there trying to hit everything she throws, you’re in trouble, because you can’t possibly cover all those parts of the plate with the kind of movement and change of speeds that a quality pitcher has.
“So, we saw some good arms this last weekend. I felt like this past weekend between App and Penn State was a feeling of an SEC-type of competition. And I’m really glad we’re going to face something like that again tonight, and it just gives us a chance to really lock in, to hone in on solving this puzzle. Everybody stay committed to it. Results don’t matter. We just keep going back to the drawing board till we figure it out.”
On it being the best start since 2006 and 2007, why those teams were successful
“I don’t think back, and I don’t think forward, so I probably have to think for a while about those teams. But again, I think the similarities are strength in the circle. When you look back then, you had Monica Abbott and our current pitching coach, Megan Rhodes Smith, leading the way. And everything starts in the circle. If you’ve got depth in the circle, you have a chance to do some good things, and then you build a good defense around that, and some pretty explosive offensive players.”
On Makenzie Butt pinch hitting
“What makes Mak so great is just every day you get the same thing. So even in the fall, when she got hurt and was out for several weeks, you had the same person every day in practice. In fact, you wouldn’t even know she was injured by how active she was in practice and literally doing everything she possibly could with every body part besides the broken finger. And she’s just a team player. I mean, one day she went three for three, and the next day I said, ‘Hey, I’m not going to start you today,’ but I knew, and the team knew, that she was going to have an amazing attitude. She prepares in the dugout. She’s constantly watching the game so that when her opportunity comes, she’s ready for it. At the same time, she doesn’t put too much pressure on herself. Players you can depend on to just be the same every day. Those are coaches’ favorite players for sure.”
On offensive numbers going up across softball
“Well, I think pitching is really hard. And you know, you go back 20 years ago, and pitchers were trained to throw seven innings. They did that, not just in high school, but in travel ball. Now, travel ball is probably 85 to 90% exposure softball. They’re not playing to win. Nobody knows what the score is. Nobody cares. It’s ‘Hey, you get your two, three innings so the college coaches can see what you do. You get your couple at bats. So they can see what you do.’
“They don’t know how to bunt anymore, because nobody’s going to bunt in the travel ball tournament, right? Because that’s not exposure for me. So it’s just changed so much in how they are prepared. At the same time, I think the advances in technology and teaching and coaching have felt more on the hitting side of things. More on the hitting side of things than the pitching side of things. So, you know, hitters have just gotten a whole lot better, where we just don’t train pitchers to understand how to execute three times, four times through a lineup.”
On freshmen debuts at Sherri Parker Lee last weekend
“You can talk about how cool it is and what an electric environment it is and all that, but it’s not until they see it. And honestly, that’s probably what got us a bit against App State on Friday, because I think we were a little bit, ‘Oh wow,’ and really amped up. It’s exciting. But at the same time, you have to be able to bring yourself back down to a good emotional level, because we want to play well for our home fans. There’s no question. I mean, we want to play well every day, but you get out there with that kind of crowd behind you. And this weekend that was as many fans as I’ve ever seen here in February for non-SEC softball. So it’s pretty cool, but I think it’s kind of like taking a little kid to Disney for the first time and seeing it through their eyes.”
On her biggest takeaway from the pitching last weekend
“The biggest thing was they all got punched right away, which hadn’t happened, and it didn’t faze them. You look at each of them and how much they’ve grown in that respect, that was pretty cool. Sage, I think that’s probably the biggest way she’s grown is I’m not going to let what just happened dictate the next thing, and that’s why she’s able to command the zone a whole lot better this year.
“Karlyn went from having probably the worst two innings of her season to the best five innings. To look at the numbers at the end of that game and see that she had 15 strikeouts, the way the game started, and not just the first two batters, but she just wasn’t herself for the first couple innings. But what’s really impressive about that is a lot of athletes don’t have the ability to flip their mindset as quickly as she does, and as quickly as we’ve seen our pitching staff do, and I think it’s a great role model and a great inspiration for the rest of our team.”
On how prepared the team is for SEC play
“Well, from the standpoint of the schedule we’ve played, being on the road, I think we’re as prepared as we could be.
And tonight’s another great opportunity to prepare us. This past weekend was a tougher field of teams than we typically have in that tournament, which we want that, sometimes we can’t get it. I was really, really happy that we had those kinds of games this past weekend, because I feel like we’ve played between the Clearwater tournaments and then some adversity we created for ourselves on Friday down in Birmingham, and then this past weekend, we’ve done the best job we could of putting ourselves in tough situations against good opponents.”
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