Tennessee will host UConn for a three-game series with a slight schedule change due to a forecast of dicey weather over the weekend.

A doubleheader will be played today on March 14 at 5 and 7:30 p.m. at Lee Softball Stadium with the game scheduled for Saturday, March 15, becoming part of that setup. Those with tickets for Saturday’s game can attend Friday’s 7:30 p.m. game.

The regional forecast for Saturday is rain, thunderstorms and high winds, so softball seems like a wash. The third game is set as scheduled for noon on Sunday, March 16.

The two foes are well known for Lady Vols basketball fans, but this will be the first time Tennessee and UConn meet in a softball matchup. The Huskies are 13-8 to start the 2025 season.

Taylor Pannell, a redshirt sophomore, leads the Lady Vols at the plate with a .500 batting average and a career-best 10 home runs and 42 RBIs this season with plenty of time to add to it. Pannell missed her freshman season due to injury and hit eight homers last year as a redshirt freshman. Pannell has long ball company in 2025 with Sophia Nugent launching six homers and four each by Ella Dodge, McKenna “Boo” Gibson and Laura Mealer.

Pannell’s defense has always been solid – and she can field multiple positions – but her elevation on offense has been a difference-maker for Tennessee. She has struck out just four times in 76 at bats and also drawn 15 walks.

“She’s really become a professional hitter,” coach Karen Weekly said. “And she was already a great hitter, but her ability to shrug things off when they don’t go well, her ability to take a strike if it’s not what she’s looking for, get comfortable hitting with two strikes.

“That’s usually the progression you see when somebody becomes a very, very complete hitter is they’re willing to go deep in the count and wait for what they want and they’re good at battling, too.”

The Lady Vols have a deep pitching roster led by junior Karlyn Pickens and sophomore Sage Mardjetko with considerable help from freshmen Peyton Tanner and Erin Nuwer and junior Charli Orsini.

Pickens is 7-3 this season with an ERA of 0.68 and 97 strikeouts. Pickens also tied the record this season on February 20 against Oregon for the fastest pitch in softball history at 77 mph – a record set by Lady Vols legend Monica Abbott in 2012 during a National Pro Fastpitch game. In the 1-0 win over Duke this week, Pickens had 10 strikeouts, including a punchout to strand the tying run at third to end the game.

“Karlyn’s evolution has been very cool to watch, because I don’t think when she was a freshman, she would have had that composure,” Weekly said. “Most freshmen don’t, but a lot of them never learn to have that composure, because they’re not willing to make an honest self-assessment of the things that they need to do different and do better.

“And that’s been the beauty of Karlyn from day one; she is so self-aware and so honest and so vulnerable that she’s able to talk herself through, ‘Hey, this is where I’m falling short, and this is where I need to grow.’ Her mental growth has been unbelievable.”

NCAA Softball ranked the three deepest pitching staffs to start the season as Oklahoma, Tennessee and Florida State with this assessment of the Lady Vols: Tennessee’s 1-2 punch of Karlyn Pickens and Sage Mardjetko is one of the best in the nation, but what sets the Lady Vols apart is their overall staff depth. The team owns a Division I-best 0.93 ERA through March 10, allowing just 31 earned runs in 150 innings.

The Lady Vols are 22-4 overall and ranked No. 7 in the country. Tennessee opened SEC play last weekend at Georgia and took two of three games in Athens before stepping out of conference to host Duke earlier this week and now the Huskies.

The team also will participate in the 2025 Midstate Classic in Columbia, Tennessee, on March 18, an annual event at Ridley Sports Complex that features two high school rivals in the morning, a matchup of two community colleges in the afternoon and the Lady Vols and Eastern Kentucky University at 5:30 p.m.

The SEC home opener for Tennessee will be March 22-24 against Arkansas, followed by a trip to Norman for three games March 28-30 against defending national champion Oklahoma.

SELECTION SUNDAY: The basketball team will learn its postseason destination on Sunday, March 16, when the NCAA unveils the brackets at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

The Lady Vols had been in position to host the early rounds, but the regular season loss to Georgia and one win in the SEC tourney likely dropped Tennessee to a five seed. The five seed opens play against a No. 12 seed with the host seed at No. 4 playing a No. 13 seed. If the seeds hold, the Lady Vols would play a second round game against a team playing at home.

While hosting is a huge advantage, it’s worth noting that Kim Caldwell and crew are ahead of schedule with a team that had to be assembled last April with returning players and transfers and then taught a new system on both ends of the court, all while the head coach carried a baby and then gave birth on January 20. The Lady Vols could rattle some cages in postseason if they strike the reset button just right.

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.