The Lady Vols are back on campus after one game in the SEC tourney with their attention now turned to final exams. The short stay in conference postseason will allow some extra practice, too, before the NCAA tourney starts May 15-17.

“Good amount of practice, for sure. Good opportunity to work on a lot of things,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said. “We start final exams, so we’re in the middle of that, so allowing them plenty of time to focus on their academics, so a mixture of both.”

Sage Mardjetko earned 2026 SEC Softball Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors this week. The junior, who is from Lemont, Illinois, is majoring in biological sciences, biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology with a 3.81 GPA. Mardjetko has posted a 12-2 record this season with an ERA of 0.95, well below the 2.50 of 2025 after having offseason surgery to repair a torn labrum in her left hip.

Tennessee departed early from Lexington, Kentucky, where the SEC tourney is being held in 2026, with a 4-1 loss to Ole Miss. The conference’s postseason tournament has rotated among member schools since 2004. That will change in 2027, when Toyota Field, home of Minor League Baseball’s Double-A Rocket City Trash Pandas, will host the event at a neutral venue in Madison, Alabama, near Huntsville.

The Lady Vols played Wednesday and scored first against Ole Miss in the second inning, but the Rebels went ahead 4-1 in the fourth and fifth innings, as Tennessee couldn’t summon a sufficient response on the field, in the circle or at bat.

“Things aren’t going to go your way all the time in a game, but you have to figure out a way defensively to stop the bleeding, and then you have to figure out a way on offense to come through with a big hit with runners in scoring position,” Weekly said. “That’s what softball is about this time of year, good pitching and playing really clean defense and timely hitting. We didn’t really do any of those three.”

Bella Faw drove in Tennessee’s lone run with a two-out single to bring home Elsa Morrison, who reached on an infield single with one out and moved to second on a passed ball. Morrison got to third on a groundout to the pitcher and scored with the RBI hit to right field by Faw.

After the game, Faw, a junior from Sugar Hill, Georgia, fielded a question about the team’s response before NCAA tournament play stats.

“We talk a lot about surrendering the outcome and something we just talked about in our team huddle, and truly honing in on that and having these conversations individually with others, but also as a team, is something we’re going to need to do,” Faw said. “Trusting our coaches, trusting ourselves, trusting our preparation, that’s really all it is right now.”

The NCAA tourney brackets will be unveiled this Sunday, May 10, at 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2. Tennessee will host a May 15-17 regional – it will be the 21st consecutive time in 2026 – but a coveted Super Regional spot as a top eight seed is uncertain now. Regardless, it’s always a tough slate to get to the Women’s College World Series as one of the last eight teams, and each year brings its share of upsets.

“We have a thing we say in our program, when you make a mistake, you say magic, which is an acronym for make a greater individual commitment,” Weekly said. “Well, we all know the magics are about to come to an end. It’s win or go home now, plain and simple.

“If you can’t get fired up and you can’t get locked in and you can’t really be disciplined now and accountable, you’re never going to be.”

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.