After coming up just a win short of playing for a national championship in the 2026 Women’s College World Series, Tennessee softball and Karen Weekly are undergoing a coaching staff change. According to a report from Justin McLeod of D1 Softball, offensive-minded assistant coaches Craig Snider and Stephanie Sanders will not return to UT next season.
Snider and Sanders both joined the program in June of 2024. Snider joined after two seasons as the head coach at Texas Tech. Both played big roles in the offensive approach in their two seasons, but it appears both coaches and UT are looking for a change.
This comes after the Lady Vols’ bats considerably cooled down in the postseason. After losing 4-1 to Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament, Tennessee swept the Knoxville Regional by scoring three, seven, then five runs. In the Knoxville Super Regional sweep of Georgia, UT scored three and two runs.
In the WCWS, the Lady Vols exploded for six runs in the opening game against Texas. Then, it scored just two against Texas Tech and won via a walk-off solo home run in extra innings. Needing just one win in two games against the Longhorns, Tennessee only produced two and then no runs to be eliminated.
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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 about Snider early in the season. “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.”
Now, Tennessee will have a pair of assistant coach openings to fill on its staff. They would join Weekly and pitching coach Megan Rhodes Smith and the return of the entire starting batting order from last season, if none choose to transfer.
