Before the month of March ended, the softball team found itself at a crossroads. Tennessee had just lost two of three games to Arkansas in Knoxville. The Lady Vols salvaged the third one to avoid the sweep. The Razorbacks are an excellent team and ranked No. 10 in the country, but Tennessee looked like a shell of itself in that series.

“Arkansas was a real look in the mirror,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said. “Some not so nice things were said to each other, very honest things, but things that you don’t want to hear. But it’s the truth, and you have to hear. We all had to look in the mirror and make a decision about what kind of team we wanted to be.”

A trip to Norman to face powerhouse Oklahoma didn’t seem like an ideal place to get on track, but Tennessee won that three-game series with two victories in a story outlined HERE. That was followed by two wins in three games at home against No. 15 Mississippi State and then a trip to Texas.

While the SEC has expanded to 16 teams, each team plays eight series a season – otherwise the regular season would stretch into summer – so that means a program won’t play seven other conference teams that year unless they meet in postseason. The Lady Vols drew both newcomers and softball stalwarts in Oklahoma and Texas in 2025 with both on the road.

On paper, it looked brutal with two road trips within three weeks to two of the best teams in the country. But Tennessee took two of three in Austin last weekend – junior pitcher Karlyn Pickens got both wins – and is now ranked No. 2 in the country with Oklahoma at No. 4 and Texas at No. 3.

“I think we’re really figuring out who we are as a team,” said Pickens, who just made history as the first player to ever win National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) player or pitcher of the week honors for three consecutive weeks. “Yes, it’s awesome to beat Oklahoma, to beat Texas, but at the end of the day, we’re so excited to be playing together and playing like we know how we want to be. So, to be in the middle of April and just now finding out who we are, that’s great.”

The Lady Vols will host Auburn for three games on April 17-19 and won the opener, 4-2, thanks to a two-run, walk-off homer by Taylor Pannell in the bottom of the seventh inning. Friday’s game is at 6 p.m. with Saturday at 2 p.m. at Lee Stadium, and both will livestream on SECN+.

Tennessee will step out of conference and host No. 19 Clemson on Tuesday, April 22, at 6 p.m. with the game broadcast on ESPNU and then get back on the road for a three-game series at Ole Miss on April 25-27.

Weekly was asked in Austin after the game if the SEC wears down teams. Both the Longhorns and Sooners are making their first trip through the SEC regular season gauntlet.

“Not if you’re used to it,” Weekly said with a smile. “It’s what we’ve been doing for 10-15 years. This league’s been strong for a long, long time. And just got a little bit deeper when you added Texas and OU. We still go play eight series, and they’ve been tough for us for years.”

While Tennessee is No. 2 in the country in the ESPN/Softball America poll, the Lady Vols are in a three-way tie for fourth place in the SEC at 9-6 with Florida and Mississippi State. Texas A&M is in first place at 11-3 and also No. 1 in the country – Tennessee will host Texas A&M on May 1-3 to end the regular season – with Texas in second place at 11-4 and Oklahoma in third place at 10-5.

Softball has four media and/or coaches polls with Tennessee as high as No. 2 and as low as No. 6. The polls can be viewed HERE.

Lady Vols softball rankings this week.

“It’s still a long season,” Weekly said when asked if her team was in a good position for postseason. “It’s more about the belief they have in themselves and how to win games in different ways. Every weekend in the SEC you have a chance to prove something to yourself.

“And this weekend was a chance to prove gritty pitching, gritty defense and those timely hits. It wasn’t pretty, but we scratched the runs across any way we could. I mean tagging up at third, on a pop-up that close to home? That’s just heads up softball. Every weekend we’re experiencing something that we’ll be able to draw from when it matters the most in May.”

The tag-up at third came courtesy of Kinsey Fiedler in the first inning. Sophia Nugent popped up in foul territory about 25 feet from the plate. The ball was caught just as two Texas players converged on each other and fell. Fiedler crossed the plate standing up with no throw.

When Pickens was asked about a memorable moment in the game, it wasn’t a key strikeout. It came while she was in the dugout with McKenna Gibson at bat. The Lady Vols led 3-1 in the top of the seventh, and Gibson sent a pitch over the left side of the infield to bring home a run for a 4-1 lead before Oklahoma’s last at-bat in the bottom of the inning.

“When we got that one in the gap, that extra run was like a breath of fresh air,” Pickens said. “I think that probably was the moment that made me kind of calm down. Three more outs, that’s all it was.”

Pickens has played a major role in Tennessee’s surge, but Weekly is even more impressed with how coachable her ace pitcher is.

“Karlyn completely trusts in whatever we decide in our game plan, and that’s a credit to how Karlyn was raised,” Weekly said. “Her parents are the type that have never questioned a coach in their lives. They’re always going to be supportive, and they’re going to be supportive of the coaches and the team to their daughter.

“And she’s old school in that respect, just a terrific value system, just really, really good people.”

BASKETBALL: The giveth side of the transfer portal arrived last Sunday with the commitment of Nya Robertson, a 5-7 guard from Fort Worth, Texas. She visited Tennessee last weekend and was seen at the Orange & White football game.

Nya Robertson looks to make a pass. (SMU Athletics)

Robertson is a scorer at 18.5 points per game season for SMU, can get to the line – she connects at nearly 77 percent – and earned All-ACC Second Team honors. Most importantly, she fits coach Kim Caldwell’s system of up-tempo offense and relentless defense.

The Lady Vols likely would want to add one more player from the portal, and while a forward with some size would be ideal, it has to be someone who also is versatile and can run.

Zee Spearman, who will be a senior this season, has changed the trajectory of her basketball career because Caldwell let the 6-4 forward play to her strengths of running the floor and being an offensive threat inside and outside the paint.

SMOKIES BASEBALL: Covenant Health Park opened Tuesday, and it’s a gem of a stadium. As a lifelong baseball fan, I have been in a lot of ballparks at all levels, and it’s the best AA stadium I’ve ever seen.

Cheers from Covenant Health Park. Buy the mug and get cheaper refills. Oranges are optional.

If you’re looking for me for the next five months, there’s a good chance I’m at Covenant Health Park either in my season ticket seats behind the home dugout or sipping a cold brew at the Modelo Watering Hole beyond right field.

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.