Photo by Ian Cox/Tennessee Athletics
By Allison Seaton
The Lady Vols softball team defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes (11-0) for the second time during the Tennessee Invitational. The team shut down their opponent by run-ruling them in the fifth inning.
The game started off slow, neither team got on the board until the bottom of the third inning. McKenna Gibson started the Lady Vols off with a single to right field, sending Kiki Milloy across the home plate.
Katie Taylor scored on a throwing error, shortly before Sophia Nugent hit a grand slam.
Nugent hit the home run while Jackie Kirkpatrick, Laura Mealer, and Amanda Ahlin were all on base. The crowd was going wild while Nugent had two strikes and the teams had two outs.
The Lady Vols defense was impossible to break through, the Buckeyes weren’t able to maintain their running bases.
Karlyn Pickens stayed on the mound the entire game, with three hits and 18 at bat.
Zaida Puni secured the win for the Lady Vols in the bottom of the fifth. It was as though the bottom of the third was repeating itself.
The bases were loaded, the team had two outs, and the crowd was louder than before. Puni had two strikes but hit a grand slam through the right field, sending Milloy, Bella Faw, and Destiny Rodriguez across home plate.
“Sometimes when people get in that bases loaded situation, they might put too much pressure on themselves,” said head coach Karen Weekly, “I felt we controlled the at bats better as the game went on.”
The Lady Vols will take to the road to play the Howard Bison in Washington, DC, on March 11.