Tennessee run rules Florida to stay alive at WCWS
A day after being walked off by Oklahoma, Tennessee responded with a knockout blow to Florida. The Lady Vols jumped out to a huge lead early to beat the Gators 11-3 and stay alive at the 2025 Women’s College World Series.
“(We) obviously an emotional night, but these guys said two things in the locker room last night,” Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly. “Number one, they said, Karlyn (Pickens), it’s not your fault; and, number two, Karlyn, we got your back. And they showed tonight they had each other’s back and had Karlyn’s back, and I’m just glad we get to play another day, one day at a time.”
Florida had just about the worst start imaginable. Karlyn Pickens walked two of the first three batters she faced, but the Gators’ struggles with runners in scoring position reared their ugly head again. Pickens struck out Reagan Walsh and Korbe Otis to end the threat.
Gabby Leach opened the bottom half of the first with a triple that bounced over the first base bag and rolled into the right field corner. Tennessee proceeded to collect four straight hits, knocking out Florida starter Kara Hammock before she recorded an out.
It didn’t go much better for Ava Brown, who walked in a run against the first batter she faced. Alannah Leach hit a bases-clearing double paired with an error to move her to third. Florida finally got the first out of the inning on an Emma Clarke sacrifice fly, but were already down seven.
“In the first inning, we were really just thinking attack our pitch, attack the zone we want,” Tennessee catcher Sophia Nugent. “We knew the umpire had a little bit of a smaller zone, so stay within that. And honestly felt like we broke it open and it propelled us to go every inning.”
Tennessee let it fly in the second inning. Nugent and McKenna Gibson hit back-to-back home runs against Brown. Tennessee tacked on another run in the fourth.
The large cushion prompted Weekly to put Sage Mardjetko into the circle after Pickens threw 129 pitches on Thursday and 23 in the first inning Friday. Mardjetko did well until she surrendered back-to-back blasts to Walsh and Otis to make it 10-3.
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Alannah Leach picked up her fourth RBI of the game in the fourth to put the run-rule back into effect.
Tennessee’s WCWS trip continues and the Lady Vols will face the loser of Texas Tech and UCLA on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC. Tennessee will also have a well-rested Pickens.
Florida season ends with key batters: Kendra Falby, Korbe Otis, Reagan Walsh and Rylee Holtorf all graduating. There were questions about why Keagan Rothrock didn’t get the ball, but a nagging blister kept her out of the circle.
“We have been fighting a blister with Keagan for a while,” Florida head coach Tim Walton said. “So just came apart yesterday. Came apart, actually, on Saturday against Georgia in the game. So we’ve been fighting that for a little bit. Felt like it was our best chance to give. Kara was going to go one time through, same thing we had at Oklahoma, get nine outs and then bridge the gap. Maybe let Keagan throw at the end.
“But just trying to give that — ultimately, she could have pitched today, and being good or not good, we don’t know what that would have been. But got a long road to go, and you blow her out in the first inning of this game, and then what? I know we’re done now, but the decision was really to just try to go as much as we can with everyone else given the circumstances.”
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