Tennessee Lady Vols Softball 2022.

Just watched post game presser and during second inning Karen said trainer told her that Ashley was done for the day. That’s what I figured when she didn’t start game two. Question now is even if she wants to come back, can she physically? I don’t want her to hurt herself or be in constant pain just to play softball.

I wouldn't be holding my breath on her returning next season. She'll be in school but that doesn't mean she'll be on the team. I hope I'm wrong, though.
 
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Parents and travel ball coaches watch games too. Ball dont lie as they say. They know...

Since they went to this regional format in 2005, I can't think of another Vols team that has outachieved the softball program.

Not football, neither basketball team, not baseball,

But, I can see the point where like Johnny Majors...we've perhaps reached our ceiling...?.
 
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Just wanted to say thank you to all our Lady Vols for coming up big in so many games this season. Won’t forget when Ashley Rogers pitched 13 innings to win the game, and I saw so many great hits, great pitching performances, and impossible catches. Excited to see Puni and Lair and all the new players we’ll have next year, but want to say especially that I’ll miss all the players who won’t be on our team next year. This loss was disappointing, but you gave your all, and will always be in the family of Lady Vols For Life. Wishing you all great success!

GO LADY VOLS!!!
 
Just a reminder, Tennessee beat MS St 3 out of 4 games this year.
I realize that and am not arguing that they are a better team. I also understand that both Karen and Ralph have done wonders for this program and will not be going anywhere. I am simply pointing this out as one of the prime examples of the common theme in younger coaches bringing life and energy to their respective programs despite having fewer resources etc.
 
I respectfully disagree. A good athlete is a good athlete. Both fielding and hitting require good focus and fundamentals, but I'm not sure we're getting that on the hitting side.

A 5-4, 110 lb. “good athlete” will struggle to hit the ball out of the infield at best.

In any event, LVs have consistently lacked consistent hitting. Milloy and Ayala were the only two .300+ hitters. Whatever we’ve been recruiting, isn’t working.
 
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I see y’all all hating on why AR isn’t pitching, but what about the bats? She can pitch a shutout all day but if we can score a dang run, it makes no difference. Press Karen on why the bats suck right now and the last several weeks. Give EE some credit.
Bats/runs have been less than mediocre for the last few weeks and would pose a problem no matter how good the pitching could be.
 
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In years past, with teams that had players like Monica Abbott/Schutzler/Fekete/Chiles and then again with the Renfroes/Gibson/Chavanne/Shipman, talent was able to overcome poor coaching to an extent. We still should've had at least one NC with Abbott (maybe more than one), and at least one SEC regular season championship with the Renfroes (we had zero), but at least we were getting to WCWS with those teams. Now, our recruiting has actually dropped off some, which is another factor in our downfall that people seem to be overlooking. We're still recruiting well but not the level we were at one point. We used to consistently get top five classes.

The poor clutch hitting has been here the entire time the Weeklys have been here. They lost the 2007 NC because of lack of clutch hitting. When the NC was on the line, they couldn't buy a hit, and went scoreless in the last two games of the NC series, after winning the first game 3-0. Even in 2013 when we got to the NC series for the second time, the Renfroes saved our behinds when we had some piss poor offensive outings vs. Washington and Texas in OKC.
Been saying it for awhile, the talent in Tennessee is better than what it’s been in the past. Low hanging fruit in all positions playing elsewhere in the SEC.
 
In years past, with teams that had players like Monica Abbott/Schutzler/Fekete/Chiles and then again with the Renfroes/Gibson/Chavanne/Shipman, talent was able to overcome poor coaching to an extent. We still should've had at least one NC with Abbott (maybe more than one), and at least one SEC regular season championship with the Renfroes (we had zero), but at least we were getting to WCWS with those teams. Now, our recruiting has actually dropped off some, which is another factor in our downfall that people seem to be overlooking. We're still recruiting well but not the level we were at one point. We used to consistently get top five classes.

The poor clutch hitting has been here the entire time the Weeklys have been here. They lost the 2007 NC because of lack of clutch hitting. When the NC was on the line, they couldn't buy a hit, and went scoreless in the last two games of the NC series, after winning the first game 3-0. Even in 2013 when we got to the NC series for the second time, the Renfroes saved our behinds when we had some piss poor offensive outings vs. Washington and Texas in OKC.


I don't believe talent was the issue this year. We have a lot of talent, in my view. Ayala and Milloy are two good/very good players--and excellent athletes as well, Davis, Morgan, Rogers, Puni, Gibson, Beautea, etc--all talented. Our problem--in the nutshell-- is that our talent doesn't perform in the big games, in the big games. Our hitters don't perform....
 
Contracts are meaningless in college sports.

Contracts are meaningless in college football and men's basketball. Find me a coach in a non-revenue sport that's fired with more than a year left on his/her deal that wasn't involved in gross misconduct. I'll wait. It's why White waited until this year to fire the track coach that everyone expected to be gone after last year, he wasn't paying a buyout for a coach outside the big three sports. You can believe me or not on anything else I've posted, but my career is coaching and entertainment contracts. Schools don't buy out coaches outside of football and men's and women's basketball.

There is going to be some pretty significant coaching turnover in SEC softball this offseason, but none of it is going to be in Knoxville.
 
Contracts are meaningless in college football and men's basketball. Find me a coach in a non-revenue sport that's fired with more than a year left on his/her deal that wasn't involved in gross misconduct. I'll wait. It's why White waited until this year to fire the track coach that everyone expected to be gone after last year, he wasn't paying a buyout for a coach outside the big three sports. You can believe me or not on anything else I've posted, but my career is coaching and entertainment contracts. Schools don't buy out coaches outside of football and men's and women's basketball.

There is going to be some pretty significant coaching turnover in SEC softball this offseason, but none of it is going to be in Knoxville.
You keep saying fired, I don’t believe I did. Coach Lu walked away with one year left on her contract. Again, people leave for many reasons, fired isn’t the only one. Sometimes it’s just time. Such as Ralph, who also stepped away as his contract was to expire at the end of this year, but was stepping away at the end of 2020 but Covid bumped it another year. Meaningless
 
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Our final OB% of .395 and SLG% of .519 were solid and we had the 2nd-most HRs ever, but our team batting avg ended up at .280, the lowest since 2002 (.264) and .29 lower than our historic average. In recent years, we've typically had 4-6 players with a batting average above .300...this year, just 1.
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We can go back and find the posts. Several in this thread wanted us to start Ashley against Campbell.

I said she should start, bats wake up pull her out as early as possible as you're playing to win right now. I didn't agree with her coming in when we were up 4 runs, we should be able to take of that game and save the 3 innings/rest for another day.
 
Contracts are meaningless in college football and men's basketball. Find me a coach in a non-revenue sport that's fired with more than a year left on his/her deal that wasn't involved in gross misconduct. I'll wait. It's why White waited until this year to fire the track coach that everyone expected to be gone after last year, he wasn't paying a buyout for a coach outside the big three sports. You can believe me or not on anything else I've posted, but my career is coaching and entertainment contracts. Schools don't buy out coaches outside of football and men's and women's basketball.

There is going to be some pretty significant coaching turnover in SEC softball this offseason, but none of it is going to be in Knoxville.
I agree that she isn't getting fired this year. But that doesn't mean she is on safe ground. It will be interesting to see if she gets an extension and what the buyout details are if she does.
 
It ended with a thud like last season, but even so, I still thoroughly enjoyed this season and will miss seeing this group in the future. I believe they are hard working, highly competitive players, but for whatever reason simply lose the fun and their nerve in the post-season. A case of wanting it TOO MUCH, and that's an especially heartbreaking way for a team's season to end: pressing it completely flat. I hate it for them because I'm sure they're all hurting today. 😢
 
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