On Friday, Tennessee softball became the first team to clinch its spot in the 2026 Women’s College World Series. The Lady Vols defeated Georgia two games to none to sweep the Knoxville Super Regional as the No. 7 overall seed.
Now, UT awaits the other series to conclude to see who will join them in Oklahoma City next week. With every other set finishing just their first game on Friday, there were some surprising results. This included No. 2 Texas losing to Arizona State, No. 3 Oklahoma to Mississippi State and No. 6 Florida to No. 11 Texas Tech.
While it’s just losing the first game of a best two out of three, each of those results could also have a direct impact on Tennessee. The Lady Vols will play the winner of the series between the Longhorns and Sundevils in their opening game of the WCWS. If ASU can pull off the upset, UT would get an on-paper easier opponent to open the WCWS.
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If Tennessee wins that opening game of the WCWS, it’d play the winner between the Oklahoma-Mississippi State series and Florida-Texas Tech series. With the higher seed losing both of those game ones so far, it also could line up for an easier on-paper matchup.
While it is multiple upsets away from this becoming a reality, if the Lady Vols met TTU in the WCWS, it’d be a matchup with Taylor Pannell, who left for the Red Raiders in the transfer portal out of Tennessee last year.
The expectation is we’ll get a better look at the 2026 WCWS on Saturday, though. All seven other series will hold game two of their sets, with the potential to see a winner announced. In the meantime, Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly is enjoying getting her series over and done with.
“I’ll never forget 2010,” Weekly said. “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.”
The opening day of the WCWS is scheduled for Thursday, May 28, with game designations to be announced in the near future.
