Karen Weekly reflects on what has made Tennessee successful heading into NCAA Tournament

It’s been quite the weekend for Tennessee softball and coach Karen Weekly. After winning the SEC regular season championship, the Volunteers (44-8) rolled through the conference tournament to claim that title as well with a 3-1 victory against South Carolina on Saturday.

That led to them being named the No. 4 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, giving them a chance to host both a Regional and Super Regional. Weekly appeared on ESPN shortly after the bracket was announce to summarize the past few days for her program.

“It was an exciting weekend,” she said. “I’m just so proud of them and what they were able to accomplish. We left here tonight and said, ‘OK, we can celebrate until midnight. Tomorrow morning we get back to work.’ I know they’ll be ready to do that. They’ve done it all year long.”

One of the biggest strengths all season long for Tennessee has been its pitching. The Volunteers lead the SEC with an ERA of 1.52 and have also held their opponents to the lowest batting average in the conference (.155).

Tennessee has a number of pitchers that can attack, but Ashley Rogers leads the group. The senior leads the SEC with an ERA of 0.70 and has recorded a team-high 160 strikeouts across 119.1 innings pitched. The Volunteers also have a couple of solid options behind her in Payton Gottshall and Karlyn Pickens.

But while those three get most of the praise, Weekly believes it’s the overall depth of the group outside of those players that truly makes the Volunteers dangerous on the mound.

“A lot of that credit goes to (pitching coach) Megan Rhodes Smith,” Weekly said. “She’s with them in the bullpen every day. The extent of my involvement is calling the pitches, just something I’ve done for so many years. We’ve got a really deep staff. We have six pitchers and everybody hears a lot and sees primarily those three — Ashley, Payton and Karlyn — but it’s just nice every day of the SEC to be able to start somebody different and not let anybody sit on anybody for too long. I think that’s one of the strengths of our team thus far and will be a strength as we continue into the postseason.”

Tennessee has made the NCAA Tournament each of the past two season, but got bounced in Regional play despite being a host. Weekly believes this year will be different, however, in part because of the leadership the Volunteers have.

The team read The Twin Thieves: How Great Leaders Build Great Team by Steve Jones and Lucas Jadin this offseason and have adopted that as their philosophy. Karen Weekly will hope Tennessee can carry that same mindset that has made them successful all season into their first Regional matchup against Northern Kentucky at 5:30 p.m. ET on Friday.

“We have a really strong leadership council,” she said. “Just really strong leadership throughout the team. We read together The Twin Thieves. The Twin Thieves are the fear of failure and the fear of judgment. Those two things can rob us of all the joy in life. This team has really just embraced the process every day. Coming to work together, having fun and just the joy of competing. When we put our focus on those things, we’re a pretty good team and we know we’re gonna give ourselves the best chance to be successful.”