Tennessee softball beat Northeast Alabama 19-1 on Friday night at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium, but the Lady Vols had to earn it. NACC’s Addie Edwards, the reigning NJCAA Division I Pitcher of the Year, held Tennessee scoreless through two innings. Then the Lady Vols adjusted, and the runs came in bunches late.
After the game, head coach Karen Weekly talked about the offense coming alive, Erin Nuwer and Peyton Hardenburger in the circle, Emma Clarke settling in at third, and her full circle connection to Edwards. Find everything she said below.
Coach Weekly, another fall ball game in the books. Quick takeaways on tonight?
“It’s kind of a tale of two games. For the first five innings, we weren’t very good. Didn’t really mount an offensive threat. A lot of pop ups. And then we turned it on in the bottom of the sixth inning. Just made adjustments trying to get on top of the ball and keep the ball on the ground, and we ended up getting a whole lot more line drives and some hard ground balls. But certainly we scored the ball a whole lot better from the sixth inning on.
“Got to give a lot of credit to their starting pitcher. She went 34 and 0 last year, and they won the JUCO National Championship. And kind of a little fun fact is I coached her mom at Chattanooga. So 10 years ago tonight, Addie was in our dugout as a bat girl here in a Tennessee fall game. So it was neat for me and for her to see each other and compete against each other, because I’ve known that family forever.”
What was that moment and that connection like, seeing her in the opposite dugout?
“We got a chance to talk a little bit before the game and catch up a little bit and say hi to her mom and dad. And it just kind of reminds me of how old I am that I coached her mom at Chattanooga back in ‘98, ‘99, 2000. But it’s one of those full circle moments, and I’m really proud of her and proud of what she’s accomplishing there.”
How cool was it to play in front of so many fans tonight?
“The crowds have been unbelievable in the fall. I think every game the crowd’s gotten a little bit better, and I was actually anticipating we might not have a good crowd tonight because it’s fall break week here in Knoxville. But I’m just really, really happy to see that many fans in the seats, and proud of our girls and the product they put on the field. It makes the fans want to come back, and it means a lot to us when we have that many people show up to watch us.”
Four fall games now. What do you think’s improved the most from the first game to tonight?
“I think just our recognition of where we need to improve. Just now in the huddle, I kind of asked them an open ended question: what’d we learn from tonight? And the things they talked about were a lot of the things I wanted them to see. We need to make adjustments quicker. Not wait so long, have everybody go through the lineup once or twice before we start doing something different. We know what to do. We don’t need to wait for the coaches, those kinds of things. So you’re seeing them talk the game at a higher level as we go on.”
Where are you seeing Bella Faw continue to try to take her next step at the plate?
“It’s all about keeping the ball on a line or on the ground. We just got to get away from the pop ups. So it’s about leveling out her swing. She’s made some strides in that direction, for sure, and she’ll continue to make more. She needs to and she will. She’ll work hard. Phenomenal defender. We’ve known that for four years, and I think she has the tools to be an offensive threat. We just got to get the ball on a line.”
Erin Nuwer, what has she done really well in the last couple games that you’re taking away?
“She’s really committed to each pitch. Not hesitating with a pitch, not shying away from it if it’s not working the first time. She’s just determined: “I will throw this pitch, whatever it is, drop, rise, change. I will throw this and I’m going to master the location, whatever it might be.” So I just like to see that maturity in her, that she’s gonna go for it no matter what’s happening.”
Peyton Hardenburger’s, of course, gonna be entering a larger role this season. What did you like about her command today?
“Oh, absolutely loved her changeup. I thought that pitch was money, and I told her, “That’s a big time pitch. It doesn’t matter who you’re facing. That pitch would’ve been very effective tonight against anybody.” And that’s gonna be important for us, like you say, because we need her to take on a bigger role. I love the way she got into jams and got herself out of them, and stayed really composed in those innings. And I think she gave her infield and her team really great energy when we got in those jams.”
Speaking of the infield, another night, another solid effort, especially Emma Clarke at third base. What is she doing so well in that spot?
“She’s getting more comfortable. Emma’s the kind of player who can do so many things that we moved her around a lot her first two years. First year she was a lot of right field and some DP. Last year it was first base primarily all year, and then we bumped her over to second at the end. This year I think we wanna try and get her settled. Every day she gets better at third, and every day she makes a mistake and she learns from it. And then she makes another, and she learns from it. The key is to learn from them. And you’re going to make mistakes. She wouldn’t be making mistakes if she wasn’t going for it and trying to make plays.
“But she’s one of the most move forward kind of kids you’ll ever meet and you’ll ever get to coach. Because even when she makes a mistake, she’s like, “Okay, what’d I do? Okay. All right. Here we go.” And I love coaching somebody like that.”
You mentioned the tale of two games, obviously a couple of innings where it was an offensive explosion. Was it something as simple as getting to see a different pitcher, or what changed with the approach?
“Addie did a really nice job against us. We started the rally with her still in there, and then they took her out. I think we had maybe five on the board at that point in time. So a little bit of it is probably seeing another pitcher, but I think the majority of it is our kids decided, “We’re going to make an adjustment.” And then somebody has to ignite that. As soon as one person does it, they kind of show the way, and then everybody kind of goes, “Hey, we can do that, too.” Getting on a hitting roll like that is contagious, just like a hitting slump is contagious. But it’s all a matter of your mindset, and shifting your mindset to, “This is what we’re going to do.””
Are umpires putting more of an emphasis on illegal pitching than usual?
“I don’t know if they’re putting an emphasis on it. We have asked them to not let anything slide in fall ball. I think sometimes that happens, they’ll just let it slide because it’s fall ball, and we’ve said, “No, we want the opposite. If it looks illegal, we want you calling it.” Because we need to get our pitchers pitching legally. You don’t want that call to come up at the worst possible time.”
I know you were shouting over to first base early in the game to keep heads up and get back to the bag. How much of moments like that is why you appreciate fall ball so much?
“Oh, there are so many teaching moments and so many opportunities to turn to the dugout and kind of explain what happened. And that’s a big thing for us, to learn quickly. I don’t want 22 players to have to make the same mistake to learn. We can all learn from one mistake, or one thing somebody does really good. So fall ball’s a great time for us to have a lot of teaching moments in the game and a lot of times that we can stop and talk something through.”
