Lady Vols sweep, pad streak at 7

With SEC play beginning today, the Tennessee women's softball team couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

The Lady Vols (12-4) wrapped up the Tennessee Classic Sunday with 5-1 and 8-4 victories over Ohio University (4-13) and Illinois State (9-8), respectively, at Lee Softball Stadium.

The Lady Vols won all five of their games in the three-day event, beating OU and ISU each twice and 15th-ranked Texas once. The 20th-ranked Lady Vols will head into Mississippi State for a three-game series starting Tuesday with a seven-game winning streak dating to a Feb. 26 win over Syracuse.

"It shows our girls we can play against good competition," UT co-head coach Ralph Weekly said. "I think that Illinois State and Texas are definitely good tests as far as the SEC is concerned. Illinois State played a real close game with Mississippi State, who is our first opponent, just a couple of days ago."

Utility player Nicole Kajitani provided much of the offense in both of UT's games Sunday. Against Ohio, she went 2-for-3 with three RBIs. Against Illinois State, the senior hit her first home run of the season - a two-run shot in the sixth inning.

"Nicole's a trooper, and she really came through today," Weekly said.

Kajitani came into the game in an offensive slump with a .158 batting average and raised her average to .240.

"(Co-head coach) Karen (Weekly) and I talked about keeping my same swing from batting practice to the game," Kajitani said. "I like to try harder (during the game), so (she told me to) just relax, have a smooth swing, see the ball and let the bat do the job."

In both of UT's games, the sixth inning turned out to be pivotal.

Against Ohio, the Lady Vols scored four run in the sixth; against Illinois State, they scored six runs.

The late-inning offense reversed what was a trend of scoring early. Before they squared off against Texas on Saturday, the Lady Vols had scored 82 of their 101 runs in the first three innings, but in the past four games, 16 of their 22 runs have come in the fifth inning or later.

"I think once we got behind in almost every game here, we realized the urgency and got going," Ralph Weekly said. "A lot of it has to do with our table-setters, our 1-2-3 hitters. I don't think they started (playing well) early every game. I think they had their better games late."

Chris Martin is a freelance contributor.