Karen Weekly expresses love for Tennessee players after loss to Texas: 'They're sad for all the right reasons'

The Tennessee Lady Vols saw their season end at the hands of the Texas Longhorns in the Women’s College World Series. Despite that, head coach Karen Weekly made it clear how proud she is of her team.

After the game, Weekly shared her love for the players at Tennessee. In particular, she praised how they’ve handled the loss and their approach to the entire 2025 season.

“Congratulations to Texas,” Karen Weekly said. “Outstanding program. Played a great game. Thank you to everybody involved, NCAA that makes this such an amazing event each year. It just gets better and better. But I think my heart is full because of the young ladies to my right and the young ladies in that locker room. They’re sad for all the right reasons. It’s not about wins and losses. It’s about the joy they’ve experienced being together every single day, and I think people saw that in the way we played. They saw them bounce back. They saw how resilient, how gritty and tough they were.”

Tennessee dropped their game against Texas on Monday 2-0, with the offense struggling to get going. Had the Lady Vols been able to win that game, they’d have had to play a second game against Texas, which had they also won would have advanced them to the championship series. However, that was an uphill battle going into action on Monday.

“This has been a group that has been just so much fun to coach,” Weekly said. “Because they allowed us to coach them, and everything we asked of them all through the season, they bought in completely and just made it really, really fun. My office and our clubhouse is right by the front door. And every one of these guys, they walk in, they have a smile on their face and they greet you.”

Tennessee made the Women’s College World Series for the second time in the last three seasons this year. There are plenty of memories that come along with that run, even if the Lady Vols would have preferred to keep things going for a few more games.

“When you get to — I can’t call it going to work,” Weekly said. “But when you get to go to work like that, there’s not a bad day. There’s not a bad day. And today, yeah, we want to be playing another day, but it’s not a bad day at all. We just wish we were going to be together again tomorrow. I think that’s the sentiment you’ll hear from our seniors. Just sad they’re not going to be with their friends again playing ball.”

Karen Weekly has been leading the Tennessee program since 2002 and has found plenty of success during her time there, going to the Women’s College World Series nine times. Now, she’ll go back to the drawing board and look to put together another great group of Lady Vols to compete for next season.