The Lady Vols have beaten three in-state teams in a row with the latest coming Thursday night against a Belmont team that came close to an upset.

Tennessee prevailed 68-58 behind 22 points by Talaysia Cooper and clutch three-point shooting by Kaniya Boyd. The Lady Vols have played four games in 10 days with two on the road and what they need next is time on the practice court.

“We’re not playing great right now and we haven’t had a lot of practice time or space to fix it,” coach Kim Caldwell said. “It’s just the way our schedule has been loaded. It’s been a grind. We haven’t had a string of more than two days of practice without a game around it since we started playing games.

Belmont competed at Oklahoma to start the season – the Bruins were within striking range in the fourth quarter against the Sooners – and took a lead against Tennessee in the final quarter.

But Boyd tied the game with a three-pointer and made another one to put Tennessee ahead 59-56 with 4:21 left to play, and the Lady Vols never trailed again.

“I think she had a different mindset coming into this game,” Caldwell said. “I think she was really good in shootaround. She was good in practice the day before. She was talking. I think when she is talking and she’s a leader and she’s having fun, that’s when she’s at her best.”

Tennessee opened the season with a loss at NC State and then defeated East Tennessee State, UT Martin and Belmont. The Lady Vols will continue the in-state slate with a Nov. 20 game at Middle Tennessee State.

The Lady Vols eased into the schedule a year ago, and Caldwell said she learned nothing about her team in November. She’s learned quite a bit in the first two weeks of November this season. Her full post-game press conference can be watched HERE.

“It’s good to get out of here with a win because it was touch-and-go at times, and we knew that that was a great team. Now, we finally do have some time to fix it and we will.”

SOCCER

Tennessee will start postseason on Friday, Nov. 14, the same way it opened the regular season – with a matchup at Regal Soccer Stadium against North Carolina. Game time is set for 6 p.m. with a livestream on ESPN+.

The Lady Vols, seeded No. 3 in the NCAA soccer tourney, will face a Tar Heel team that they beat, 2-0, in the season opener Aug. 14, 2025. Shae O’Rourke scored both goals for Tennessee, but her season ended in September because of a knee injury.

It seems odd to send a team to Knoxville when the opponents already played in a 64-team draw, but travel costs and geography play a role.

“Looking at how the bracket broke out across the country, not just ours, there’s some surprises in there as there always are any time there’s a selection,” Tennessee coach Joe Kirt said. “So, I was surprised, but it made sense geographically.”

North Carolina, which leads all women’s college soccer programs with 23 total national titles, the most recent in 2024, entered that August match ranked No. 1 in the country. The Tar Heels are now 12-6 overall, unranked and opening postseason on the road.

Tennessee, which had been in the top five in the country, is now No. 14 and 12-3-3, and earned a right to host with a top four finish in the SEC. A total of nine conference teams made the field, including No. 1 seed Vanderbilt, No. 4 seed LSU, No. 5 seed Arkansas, No. 6 seed Mississippi State, No. 8 seed Alabama, Georgia; non-seeded Kentucky and South Carolina.

“Opening game of the year was a long time ago,” Kirt said. “Both teams are little bit different but still have some familiarity with who they are and what they do. But they have evolved, as we have as well.”

Kirt’s full interview can be watched HERE.

The winner of the Tennessee-North Carolina game will face either No. 6 seed Texas Tech, 13-2-4, or UTSA, 10-5-6, in the second round on Nov. 20 with the match played on the highest seed’s home field.

“We’re ready,” Kirt said. “It’s what we’ve trained for, it’s what we’ve prepared for, it’s why we played all the games we have. So, let’s do it again.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press and a 10th anniversary edition will be released June 16, 2026.