Tennessee softball is moving on to the 2026 Women’s College World Series. On Friday night, the Lady Vols defeated Georgia 2-1 to win the Knoxville Super Regional and advance.
After the game, UT head coach Karen Weekly met with the media to give her thoughts on what transpired. Here’s what she said.
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Opening statement
“So proud of my team, the staff, all the work that went into getting ready for postseason.Big congratulations to Georgia. They are an incredibly tough opponent, which we expected. It’s super regionals. We know what they do, though we didn’t play them in the SEC. Followed them. Tony does an incredible job. And I mean, the games were nailbiters. You know, there were moments in the games that could go either way, and the young ladies to my left (Sage Mardjetko and Sophia Knight) really stepped up in those moments and just met them head-on and shifted things in our favor. And, again, just super excited to be going back to OKC.
“I love it for our seniors to be going three out of their four years, and for our freshmen, I told them, you have no idea how much fun you’re about to have. There’s no place better to be this time of year, and just excited to go there with this team and that we get to be together for another couple weeks.”
On how proud she is of Sophia Knight
“Before postseason, we talked about all the regular season stats are out the window. Nothing matters. Everybody starts with a clean slate. It’s 0-0, so don’t dwell on how well you might have done in the regular season or maybe things that you weren’t happy with, because everybody starts fresh and somebody’s going to do something surprising. Like, there’s going to be something that lifts us when we need it that nobody expects.
And obviously, she’s the one. I mean, the home run yesterday to get us going, and then the difference in the game today. I’m super proud of her. But, what makes these guys so easy to coach is when I say, ‘Hey, I think this, I think let’s try this.’ They go, ‘Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.’ They buy in and nothing you do as a coach, nothing they say to each other is going to matter if they don’t buy in and trust the staff and trust each other. And she had full trust in what we wanted her to do this weekend. And man, I mean, she was a game changer.”
On Sage Mardjetko’s pitching in game two
“Absolutely incredible. Just keeping them off balance. I mean, I think, if I get my hitters right, I think Roose might have struck out three times today. I don’t know. But something like you look at hitters who have been very dominant throughout the season and what Sage – Erin starting off, and then Sage coming in, they just kept mixing speeds and how she kept mixing her locations, and you could see it was getting hard for them to sit on anything and settle into anything.
“And I’m just so proud of Sage’s journey since she’s been here. And when you watch her now, she competes with so much joy. And that wasn’t the case last year. She was really hard on herself. And this year, she’s learned to push herself, but also to go out there and just let go and understand I can push myself in practice all I want, but when I get in the game, I just need to trust myself. And it’s inspired everybody around her. And it’s the reason that I have so much faith in her and I know she’s going to come through in those moments because she wants to be in them and she’s just in the right frame of mind to go attack anybody.”
On her embrace with Mardjetko after the game
“I think I’m just so proud of her growth because getting better on the field is one thing. Like everybody can kind of do that, but Sage has made a real transformation in her mental and emotional approach to softball and how she just lets go. And you know, that’s probably a deeper story to do with her, but it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not easy to look yourself in the mirror and see where your red flags are and see what is holding you back. And a lot of people can see it, but they won’t attack it. And she attacked it. And that’s why I just told her, I said, ‘I just want to hug you as long as possible.’ Because when you see young women just grow as people like that, I mean, the things that Sage has done this year and the way she’s changed, it’s going to serve her more in life than it ever will on a softball field, and that’s what makes me the happiest.”
On her celebratory dances, the team rubbing off on her
“It’s not very good. I haven’t done it in a while… I love coming to work every day. I love it. No matter what is going on in your life, you come and you get to spend time around these guys. I mean, every day Sage greets me with a big smile, and they all do. And I’m just really proud to – it’s a privilege to be their coach. It’s a privilege and I don’t take for granted the faith and trust they put in me and the rest of our staff. That’s what has made this so fun. I said in the fall, they’re really good learners. They do what we ask them to do, and that’s all you can ask a coach. But you know they keep me young and I’ll griddy, I’ll do whatever, if it makes them smile, if it makes them play with joy and love for each other whatever it takes, I’m about it.”
On going to the WCWS three times in four years, reaction to winning the game
“The first thing I thought of was our senior class. And everybody talks about Karlyn (Pickens) and rightfully so. Karlyn has earned everything and she’s a huge reason that during her four years here, we’re going to be an OKC three of them. But you cannot discount the contributions that Cam Sarvis and Jackie Kirkpatrick make to this team. I mean, I hope everybody in this room watched Jackie’s rounding third video with Brian Rice leading into Senior Day, where she talked about my job, and the thing that I focus on every day is making sure that – and she said ‘my pitchers’ are ready to go when they come out of the bullpen that they are pumped up, that they know their stuff’s working, that I I fill them with confidence. I mean, what an amazing servant warrior that she takes so much pride in that and she just pours into the pitchers.
“And then Cam Sarvis, another one that’s just an unsung hero. The way she just controls the dugout. Cam will be the first one to say, ‘Hey, you know, we need to do this, or we need to get on that, or hey, we need to help out this player.’ I mean, they play through the people on the field. And you never see that in a stat sheet. A lot of players that don’t play, maybe they don’t complain, but they don’t really add something. And those two add so much to our team. They’re just inspirational role models for how to be a Lady Vol and living out our core values and our mission every single day.”
On winning with pitching
“Offense sells tickets, but pitching and defense wins games. And if you don’t have great pitching, it all starts in the circle. That’s why they call this game fast pitch. Ralph said for many years, they don’t call it fast hit. They don’t call it fast run or fast field. They call it fast pitch. And you’ve got to have warriors in the circle, people with really good stuff, but then big-time competitors. And some of the toughest competitors on our team are in the circle. And that’s a lot of the reason we are where we are. And the job that Megan Rhodes Smith does with them. I can’t say enough about the way she handles these pitchers, the way she meets them where they are, coaches each of them as individuals.
“And then we put a lot of pride in our defense. Bella Faw, another one that it doesn’t show up in a stat sheet, but the number of runs she saves us, the number of rallies that don’t even start because of her steady defense at short, and some of the amazing plays she makes, how she’s grown in her communication and her energy and being a great leader in the infield. Those are things that we recognize in our circle, but they’re not going to get the headlines. But that’s okay because we know what’s important.”
On getting the series done early
“It’s awesome. I’ll never forget 2010. We went up to Michigan and we had the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and we were a 15 seed and they were a two seed and we upset them and won in two and there was nothing like just sitting back on Saturday and Sunday and watching everybody else play. I mean, how many series haven’t even started yet? Three? We’re done. And there’s three series that haven’t even started. So, it’s going to be nice for us to get some rest, to get a little bit of extra practice time in and then I’m really grateful because I’m on the All-American committee and I got to fly to OKC early Sunday morning and sit in a meeting for two days. So, I’m excited to have a day off tomorrow and time to pack.”
On the pitching staff
“We always knew that the talent was there. Erin, being a freshman last year, went through some growing pains. Sage, being her first year here at Tennessee, went through some growing pains. Last year, we probably put too many innings than we wanted on Karlyn. Karlyn can throw all day long, but we wanted to have a staff that was a little bit more balanced and I think that’s bore out this weekend that what we did all year and putting them in all kinds of different situations made it possible for Erin to start that game with confidence and Sage to come in and pitch in that kind of a moment.
“And I don’t think you could ignore Elsa’s contribution to that, too. You don’t have a great pitching staff without a great catcher. And when you see the growth in her from the fall to now, she’s just a freshman. A freshman coming in and you’re telling her, ‘Hey, you need to command the relationship with these pitchers.’ And oh, you got Karlyn Pickkins, All-American. You got Sage Mardjetko, stud. You got Erin Nuwer, stud. That took a while for Elsa, but she responded to every way we pushed her to get better.
“And you look at how many balls she blocked up today. I mean, these guys love throwing drop balls, and they have 100% confidence in throwing that pitch because they know that Elsa’s going to keep it in front. And so, that’s another one that uh a lot of contribution that you’re not going to see on a stat sheet. And just her communication, her energy on the field has just skyrocketed for us the back half of the season.”
On her emotions after the win
“There’s just something special when a group of people believes, and no matter what you go through, they continue to believe, and they believe in each other. They believe in the vision. There’s times when it would be easy to lose hope and we definitely had our tough times this year, but it’s probably been the best group at having hard conversations with each other and having hard conversations as a team and keeping those conversations in the inner circle. And I’ve always said that if you don’t have adversity, that’s what scares me more than anything. I welcome the adversity because you always come out stronger if you handle adversity well. And you just attack it head on and they’ve done that.”
