The SEC softball regular season champion will be determined this weekend with the top four teams in the conference all within one game of each other.

The top four, in order, are Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Tennessee and Texas, with play set to finish today, May 2, and Saturday, May 3, on various campuses across the conference.

No. 5 Tennessee is the defending regular season champion, but the SEC is loaded in 2025. Entering Thursday’s play, Tennessee was 14-7 in the SEC and its opponent, No. 2 Texas A&M, is 14-6, with one rainout against Georgia in early April. The Aggies didn’t play Oklahoma or Texas in the regular season. The Lady Vols played both SEC newcomers and won both series.

Oklahoma is 16-5 and playing three games at Florida. Texas is 13-8 and hosting Kentucky. Arkansas and Florida are tied at 12-9. LSU, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Alabama are all lurking at 11-10. For fans who are scoreboard watchers, there’s quite a bit to follow.

“It’s a crazy conference,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said. “People are bunched up everywhere. They’re bunched at the top; they’re bunched in the middle. I think whoever wins this thing is going to have seven, maybe eight losses. We’re in the mix.”

That mix for Tennessee got a bit murkier Thursday for the Lady Vols. Tennessee is now 14-8 in the SEC, while Texas A&M is 15-6 in league play. A two-out error by Tennessee in the seventh inning proved costly as a double in the next at-bat drove in the game’s only run. With Oklahoma’s win over Florida and Tennessee’s loss, the Lady Vols are out of the hunt for the top spot and tied with Texas for third place.

“Karlyn did everything she could,” Weekly said. “It was one of those games you could tell early on it’s going to be who makes the first mistake and who capitalizes on the first mistake. That’s really it offensively. … We had a lot of chances. We left a lot of runners on base. It was kind of the same for both teams.”

Tennessee will wrap up the regular season Friday with a doubleheader because of inclement weather forecasted for Saturday. Game times are 2 and 5 p.m. at Lee Stadium.

It’s also a series to honor Tennessee’s five seniors in Kinsey Fiedler, McKenna Gibson, Laura Mealer, Sophia Nugent and Katie Taylor.

Last weekend, Tennessee brushed aside a disappointing midweek one-run loss to Clemson in non-conference play and won two out of three games in a road series against Ole Miss to keep pace near the top of the conference. The Lady Vols won the clincher, 7-1, in a game that felt much closer.

“That’s the way the SEC is,” Weekly said. “I don’t think any lead ever feels safe in the SEC. I’m just so proud of our team. I am as proud, or even more proud, than our series victories at OU and at Texas, because this time of the year, it’s all about being mentally strong.

“It’s really who’s the toughest team that’s going to win a series and to win a series on the road in our seventh weekend of SEC play is huge, and especially against a team as good as Ole Miss.”

Even better for Tennessee, all nine starters reached base in the series-clinching game.

“We talked about that in our pre-game meetings that we’d had four players pretty much carrying the load for us the first two days, and we needed to get that production all the way through the lineup,” Weekly said. “Everybody did something good, and your ability to lay down the sac bunt and move a runner over is just as important as your ability to square up the ball.

“And there were so many good things, the walks, bases loaded walks. The at-bats got more and more composed as the game went along. And they were good in the beginning, but they just got better.”

It also took four pitchers across seven innings in Sage Mardjetko, Erin Nuwer, Peyton Tanner and Pickens, who was the last one in the circle and got the win in Oxford for a 20-6 record.

“The more outs that our staff can buy for us and take off of Karlyn the better,” Weekly said. “And I really loved what each of them did. Erin got the fewest batters to face, but, getting that pop up, that was a big out for us right there. So, they each did something good in critical situations.”

The team had some fun on campus this week by inviting students to pitch a softball and see how fast they could throw, while also encouraging them to attend the May 1-3 series. The results were entertaining, and Weekly noted on her social media: “Only one ball ended up in the fountain … I’d say that’s pretty good!”

All the regular season games start Thursday and wrap up Saturday instead of the typical Friday-Sunday format because the SEC tourney starts Tuesday, May 6, in Athens and it adds an extra day for teams to reset and get ready.

“Short week for everybody,” Weekly said.

When the dirt settles in the SEC standings, the top four seeds will get double byes and start tourney play Thursday, May 8.

As Weekly noted, “It’s going to come down to who’s the toughest, who’s mentally strongest, who can execute the little things.”

USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year: USA Softball revealed its top 25 finalists for 2025 player of year, and 12 of the players hail from the SEC. Tennessee placed two on the list in Karlyn Pickens and Taylor Pannell. The full list can be seen HERE.

The top 10 finalists will be revealed Wednesday, May 14, and the Top 3 on Monday, May 19. The winner will be announced prior to the NCAA Women’s College World Series.

ROWING: A sport that flies across the surface of the water often stays under the radar of a lot of media. Tennessee is ranked No. 4 in the country and has wins in 2025 against No. 3 Washington, No. 6 Princeton, No. 7 Brown and No. 9 Rutgers.

The rowing team also swept the SEC weekly honors for the third consecutive week after the Princeton-hosted regatta. Junior Alex Pidgeon earned SEC Rower of the Week; Taryn Graves earned Freshman of the Week.

In her first season in 2023-24, coach Kim Cupini took Tennessee to the NCAA championships and finished third – highest ever for Tennessee – and earned conference coach of the year honors. In her second season, Tennessee is beating the bluebloods of the sport.

The Lady Vols will be back on the water on May 11 at Melton Hill Lake in Oak Ridge, which will host the 2025 SEC Championship.

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.

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