Grieve delivers in clutch for Lady Vols, 6-3

ATHENS, Ga. - Tennessee sophomore Kelly Grieve admitted to being a little nervous when she stepped into the batter's box in the top of the seventh inning Sunday.

But Grieve knew, with the way her freshman teammate was pitching, there was no need to panic.

Grieve's two-out triple in the seventh and Jessica Spigner's five scoreless innings from the pitcher's circle gave Tennessee a 6-3 win over No. 8 Georgia at the UGA Softball Complex. The win came a day after the Lady Vols were swept in a doubleheader to start the three-game series.

"When two great teams in the SEC play, anything can happen," Tennessee co-head coach Ralph Weekly said. "That is what happened in this series."

With the score tied 3-3, two outs and runners on first and second, Grieve battled Georgia ace Christie Hamilton for eight pitches before slapping a liner into left field, driving in two runs.

"I was hitting it pretty decent slapping, so I was going to go with that," Grieve said. "I was really concentrating on coming hard to the ball and letting the barrel do the work."

The next batter, Tiffany Huff, drove in Grieve for the Lady Vols sixth run. Grieve went 2-for-4 with two runs and two RBIs.

"It's a really good feeling," Grieve said. "You are happy because you got it done and you didn't have to fall back on anybody."

In the first two games of the series on Saturday, the No. 15 Lady Vols' offense was slow to start, managing just one hit in the first game and two runs in the second.

Sunday, Tennessee wasted no time in jumping on the scoreboard. Erinn Webb drove in Grieve with an RBI single in the first inning and Shelby Burchell and Nicole Kajitani hit solo home runs in the second inning.

"We watched film last night and saw we were swinging at a lot of pitches very high," Weekly said. "Our game plan was to lay off the high stuff and attack the zone."

The Bulldogs managed to keep pace with the Lady Vols with a solo home run by Alisa Goler (her third of the series) in the first and a pair of runs in the second.

The game then turned into a pitcher's duel between Spigner and Hamilton, which resulted in Spigner's first win of her college career. The freshman pitched five innings, giving up one hit and no runs while striking out one batter of the 14 she faced.

"I have so much confidence in our defense. I know they have my back," Spigner said. "I was actually pretty pleased with my performance, especially since I haven't pitched a full game since August."

Tennessee (37-13-1, 12-10-1 SEC) has a three-game set against Alabama next weekend at home to finish the regular season and possibly improve its seeding for the SEC tournament.

"We are all fighting for seeding," Weekly said. "We are all fighting for that 4, 5, 6 seeding. It would have really hurt us to lose three straight down here.''

Jeff Cochran is a free-lance contributor