Alabama Softball: Into the Spider’s Web

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly...

The Spider and the Fly ~ Mary Howitt, 1829

The Crimson Tide buzzes their way up to Knoxville into what should be a sticky situation.

SCHEDULE

• Friday, March 24 at Tennessee 5 p.m. CT, Knoxville, TN - SECN+
• Saturday, March 25 at Tennessee 4 p.m. CT Knoxville, TN - SEC Network
• Sunday, March 26 at Tennessee 12:30 p.m. CT, Knoxville, TN - SECN+

TV... ALLEGEDLY

The Friday and Sunday games should be available on the SEC Network.

TENNESSEE (24-1)

Karen Weekly enters her 21st season at the helm of the Tennessee softball program and may have her best team yet. After serving as co-head coach alongside Ralph Weekly for 20 seasons at Tennessee, she assumed all head coaching responsibilities upon her husband’s retirement in June 2021. The Vols are ranked #2/3/3/4.

As eluded to on Monday, the UT pitching is pretty darn good. The Vols are coming off back-to-back sweeps of Ole Miss and LSU that include four shutouts in six games. Tennessee has 17 shutout wins thus far and has the lowest ERA in the nation at 0.62. Two UT pitchers are in the top 5 in the nation in ERA. Super-senior Ashley Rogers (8-0) is third at 0.40 and Karlyn Pickens (6-1) at 0.47 is fifth. Payton Gottshall (6-0, 1.01 ERA) is the third pitcher, though she would be the ace on most teams.

Oh, yeah, They can hit too. Kiki Milloy is back for her 17th season with her .457 batting average, 13 HR, 32 RBI and 19 stolen bases. Mackenzie Donihoo leads the nation with 14 doubles. Five Vols have at least 20 RBI. Team BA is .337 (11th best). 8.24 runs per game are the third best behind only Oklahoma and Arizona.

UT fielding percentage is .977 - 19th best in the nation.

ALABAMA

The Crimson Tide once again drop in the polls to #13/15/16/17 and it still seems high. Alabama continues to languish in the lower quarter of the SEC in team batting average (.291), slugging (.461), and on base percentage (.376).

Bama ERA is second lowest in the conference. But of course that is all due to one person. Montana Fouts ERA is 1.56. The other three are combined 2.29 - a number that would put them at 10th in the SEC.

Only Texas A&M and Mississippi State have worse fielding percentages than the Tide.

Once again, Tide fans can expect to see Montana Fouts start Games 1 and 3. It seemed a slam dunk that Lauren Esman would start Game 2 vs Arkansas but Patrick Murphy went with Alex Salter who also started on Wednesday against UAB. It’s anyone’s guess what The Gut® will do.

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