Tennessee finished the Buccaneer Invitational in North Charleston, S.C., undefeated with a 10-3 victory over Charleston Southern.
The No. 7 Lady Vols (19-3) jumped out front with five runs in the first inning and never looked back. Junior Ellen Renfroe recorded the win, replacing starter Erin Gabriel after she took a line-drive off the hand.
Senior Melissa Brown drove in three runs, and Sophomore Cheyenne Tarango blasted her fifth home run of the season.
The Lady Vols will host defending champion and conference foe Alabama March 8-10 at Lee Stadium.
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 11
SummittsCourt writes:
Congrats to the Lady Vols! Now beat the tide!
AlexAndersonAAradio writes:
Who is assigned to cover softball now that Mike Griffin migrated North? My gosh there are only single game tickets left for every home game this year. I think Arkansas might be the only series where you can buy tickets in pairs. It seems to me like people want to know a little more than 5 sentences on the game.
For instance in this game. It was very physical. The article mentions the injury to Gabriel, Tory Lewis also was banged up in the game. The girls were hit by pitches many times both yesterday and today to teams with inferior talent. We were the only really quality team in that tournament as far as I know, as it's hard to get coverage. I just wonder if those girls were just out to pick on us since they knew they couldn't win. All American 2nd baseman Lauren Gibson was hit pretty hard yesterday and hit again today. Hannah Akamine was hit twice over the weekend. After Kat Dodsons home run yesterday that put the game away, Lauren Gibson was hit in the chest on the first pitch. Then after Tarango's homerun today Akamine was hit on the second pitch to her. I'm just glad we are out of there and hope we don't play those teams anymore, they are too mean. I do hope we return to Charleston because the UT crowd was really active and into the game, and those people deserve to have return trips when possible. Columbia, SC is only 2 hours away.
So this weekend it's #1 and defending champs Alabama coming to town. Hey KNS! Let's get some coverage of this throughout the week. THANK YEEE!
AlexAndersonAAradio writes:
One more thing about todays game. In the first inning there was some close play at first involving Lauren Gibson and she was called out. Ralph didn't like it and just went off brutally on the umpire and got a warning, you could hear him on the stream audio just going off. I guess he had to be careful the rest of the game not to get thrown out.
Yesterday Valparaiso's coach called the tournament administrator, claiming Ralph was bullying one of the umpires into throwing a pitcher out for beaming. When the administrator showed up he or she overturned the decision to eject the pitcher. I think that opened the door for more dirty play for todays opponent.
SummittsCourt writes:
I was at both games and you are absolutely correct. The umpire gave Coach Weekly a quick warning and it wasn't warrented.
In yesterday's game a player got nicked and the umpire called a ball. Everyone in the stands heard the UT player get hit by the pitch except the umpire.
It is a shame that UT traveled this far to play in a tournament that helps these smaller schools and they get treated like dirt. The umpires were way out of their league and couldn't or didn't handle these situations correctly.
SummittsCourt writes:
I agree with you on the return to Charleston. I hope they do come back as I enjoyed seeing them play. I live in Charleston and it's rare for me to be able to watch them live like this. The fans here even braved 45 degree weather with a constant wind and cloudy skies to cheer on their teams. And once again the Lady Vol fans outnumbered the Charleston Southern fans in their own backyard.
AlexAndersonAAradio writes:
Great work Summits, along with the rest of the fans in Charleston! I could hear you all on the audio stream and it was a very rowdy crowd. I don't hear near the commotion at home games most of the time. I heard that UT fans in California were really vocal with the umpires and made the umpires feel like they were on Tennessee soil instead of California. It's really cool to see what Ralph and Karen have built and I don't think it's close to peaking as far as fan support. We are loaded and every year we sign top talent in the country. We have 3 really good ones lined up for next year including Chavanne's replacement, a power hitter compared to Tonya Callahan. Then also LG's replacement, a girls with speed and power.
It's really fun right now and watching them two coaches can be as fun as watching the game sometimes.
AlexAndersonAAradio writes:
Hey Summitscourt, I have a question for you since you are familiar to the area. Do you know how to get a letter to that administrator? According to the guy who was broadcasting the stream for utsports.com, the park administrator just showed up from nowhere to overrule an umpires ejection of a player who hit LG. The guy wasn't even watching game, didn't see what happened, but gave himself this power over umpires who were working game. I want to write him a letter. Was the game on the Charleston Southern campus? You think if I write UCS and attention the letter to the 'Buccaneer Tournament Administrator' he/she would get the letter? Or do you think this park administrator is from a separate entity?
kazoo writes:
I've never heard of an "administrator" overruling an umpire. That pretty much describes "bush league," if you ask me. The home plate umpire is in the best position to decide if a pitcher if intentionally throwing at batters--and if she is, she should be ejected. Administrators shouldn't overrule umpires--that small-town amateur-hour stuff.
SummittsCourt writes:
AS I remember it, When the Valpo pitcher hit Gibson Coach Weekly voiced his opinion rather strongly as he had the right too. After some discussion the umpire didn't do much, but then The umpire looked up at the press box and called for someone to come down but that person never showed up. My guess is there was no administrator or anyone else who could over rule the umpire. I think the umpire crew was just making it look like they were trying to appease Coach Weekly. Needless to say the Valpo pitcher continued to pitch.
Side note: some of the Valpo fans were showing some classlessness towards Coach Weekly. It was all I could do to not walk over there and start something. I guess because it looked like a couple of mothers/grandmothers is the only reason I didn't.
The Lady Vols were outstanding and didn't deserve the bad umpiring they caught the entire weekend.
SummittsCourt writes:
Yeah, you definately heard me on a few bad calls from the umpire. The Sunday umpire crew was worse than the Saturday umpire crew. I've never seen a plate umpire look so bad in all my life, but she wasn't the only one. Raven slide into second on a ground ball and was in the act of standing up with her foot on the bag and thats when the 2B caught the throw from the SS and the ump called her out.
The future does look bright for UT softball and the Weeklys will win the big one soon, if not this year.
AlexAndersonAAradio writes:
It sounds like I may have misunderstood it a little bit then. I was listening to a guy named Stephen K. Lee to an audio stream on UT sports.com and he is very hard to understand and often either gets the facts wrong or make it confusing to understand the facts. The good news is that is all over with now. The Vol network takes over from here on the games.
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