KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — No. 8 Tennessee punched its ticket to the NCAA Super Regionals for the fifth time in the past six seasons with a 3-0 victory over Longwood in Sunday’s regional final at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium.

Meghan Gregg tied UT’s single-season RBI record by driving in two runs and starting pitcher Matty Moss was dominate once again in the circle, improving her record to 25-2 this year.

The Volunteers (47-10) went undefeated in an NCAA Regional for the eighth time in program history with today’s win over the Lancers. In six of the seven previous occasions, UT went on to advance to the Women’s College World Series.

Gregg got UT off to a great start with an RBI single to drive in Aubrey Leach and put the Vols up 1-0 in the first inning. Leach led off the inning with an infield single and stole second base to move into scoring position before scoring her team-leading 59th run of the season.

It was Gregg who came through again in the top of the fifth with a solo blast into the outfield bleachers, her third home run of the tournament and 14th of the season, setting a new single-season career high. The homer as moved the Georgia native into a tie for first on Tennessee’s single-season RBI list with 77.

Brooke Vines brought home Jenna Holcomb with an RBI single in the top of the seventh to extend the Vols’ lead to three. Holcomb reached base with a single through the right side and was moved into scoring positon by Gregg in the next at-bat.

Moss was brilliant in circle, tossing a complete-game, four-hit shutout while recording nine strikeouts. It is the 13th complete game for Moss this season and her seventh shutout on the year. The nine strikeouts for the South Carolina native was one off a career high.

Krista Kelly led Longwood (30-29) with two hits while Sydney Gay did the majority of the work in the circle, throwing six innings while giving up 10 hits and two runs in a losing effort.

UP NEXT: With the win, Tennessee advances to the NCAA Super Regionals next week to take on No. 9 seed Texas A&M. The Vols will host the Aggies at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium. Dates and times for that series will be announced after all NCAA Regional games have concluded. Get your tickets for next week’s Super Regionals at AllVols.com.

RBI QUEEN: Junior shortstop Meghan Gregg tied the UT single-season RBI record with two in the Vols’ win on Sunday afternoon. She is tied with Kristi Durant (2005) and Bridget Jackson (1996) for the program record of 77. Her solo homer in the fifth inning also moved her into a tie for fourth on Tennessee’s career home runs list with 38, putting her just 13 shy of Tonya Callahan’s program record of 51 with an entire season still to play.

MOSS DOMINATE ONCE AGAIN: Sophomore right hander Matty Moss was dominant once again in the circle, tossing her second complete-game shutout of the weekend against the Lancers. Moss finished the NCAA Regional tournament with two complete-game shutouts, both against Longwood, 15 innings pitched and 20 strikeouts. Moss only allowed five hits and two walks during the tournament.

SUPER FEELING IN KNOXVILLE: The Big Orange are headed back to the NCAA Super Regionals for the fifth time in the past six years and will host No. 9 Texas A&M next week. The Vols and Aggies will begin their best-of-three series on either Thursday or Friday with every game set to be televised on the ESPN family of networks. Stay locked to UTSports.com and the Tennessee Softball Twitter account (@Vol_Softball) for that information.

POSTGAME QUOTES
Tennessee vs. Longwood
SCORE: Tennessee 3, Longwood 0

Tennessee Co-Head Coach Ralph Weekly
(Opening Statement)
“Well it never gets old, you know, it never gets old. I was really proud of our team and proud that they came out and played a different type of game today; it was more pitching and defense. We had a lot of hits, but we couldn’t string them together and make much out of them. But the pitching was awesome, and it’s what we’ve been working at for a long time. And the defense was very strong, and the kids were just not to be denied.”

(On the bottom of the lineup not being as strong as in previous years and the importance of getting them involved in the offense going forward)
“I think it’s really critical. It’s the one point I brought up in the team meeting that starting tonight we’re going to sit down with the coaching staff and look at some players on the team that we need more out of offensively and come up with a plan. And we’re going to work on that plan every day. She (Longwood Coach Kathy Riley) is right, you know, and you’re not going to fool A&M. They have a great coaching staff, they’ve already figure out – first off, they’ve played us three times. They have some weaknesses, we have some weaknesses; they know our weaknesses, and hopefully we know theirs. But you know, they’re a tremendous opponent. They really are. It’s just going to be a heck of a Super Regional, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. We’ve got to get more offense in the bottom of our order.”

(On concern about coming off an emotional victory the day before)
“Well I thought we were really high after the game too. We wanted to watch those plays over and over and over. So I thought they were pretty fired up today. What kind of happened today was a good example of, you know, we had a good chance to send Jenna (Holcomb), and she tripped coming around third and actually spiked herself. And you know, I’ll do that any time, because we have to do one thing: run. And they have to do four things: catch it, throw it, catch it, tag. So, that play kind of slowed us down some, and there were a couple other situations where we could have scored more runs, and we just didn’t get it done. But no offense can get it done every day in baseball or softball, it just doesn’t happen. And I was proud, again, of the way they came out and put 12 hits on the board, because I know everyone was going to say ‘Longwood, we don’t know much about them.’ But with five conference championships in the Big South, they know how to play ball.”

(On if he wishes he didn’t have to face SEC teams in the Super Regionals)
“Yeah, I do. And we all do, but if 13 teams are going to make the field, you’re going to catch them sooner or later. But there are no guarantees at this level. Just because, to go back to the question, just because we’ve gone every time before doesn’t mean we’re going to go this time. And I told them this today, you just have to go out and leave it all on the field. If you come off successful, it’s fine, but if you begin to think you have to win, then you’re not going to. When I called timeout to talk to Haley Bearden in that last inning, I went out to talk to her because I’d just yelled out, ‘Come on Haley, we need that hit!’ And I thought, ‘You know, she’s new to the lineup and everything,’ so I called time and went down and said, ‘Hey, we’d like to have the hit, but we really don’t need it. Just relax and do your best.’ And she hit a high chopper, and that first baseman made a heck of a play, but in any sport, I think if you put too much pressure on your athletes they’re not going to succeed.”

(On if he’s happier with his pitching staff after this weekend than after the SEC Tournament)
“Very much so. I think I’ve already said and gone on the record to say that I had them watch the Ole Miss pitcher and how accomplished she is and is still accomplishing right now. Because she doesn’t throw really hard, she’s not big, but she threw 22 of 25 first-pitch strikes. And she also threw 427 pitches in that tournament and walked one batter. And that’s what I want out of my pitchers; I want my pitchers to pitch to contact. Monica Abbott is gone, ok? Monica Abbot is gone, and there’s no one who’s going to be up there and strikeout 18 batters a game. And sometimes when they’re growing up, they’re told, ‘Got to have strikeouts. Got to have strikeouts. Got to have strikeouts.’ So that’s kind of where we turned our attention, and I’m sure that A&M is doing some things like that too because our pitchers are a lot alike. Our pitchers and their pitchers – you’re going to see. That’s why I say it’s going to be a dogfight.”

Matty Moss #1
(On making adjustments against Longwood)
“We had sat down, me and Caylan (Arnold) with Karen (Weekly) before the game and watched our film over again and made little adjustments here and there because it is always tough coming back and playing a team a second time because they’ve seen you for seven innings, so it was about making adjustments here and there.”

(On importance of Texas A&M series in regular season)
“That was a huge series for us. It was most certainly a grind and it was most certainly an offensive weekend. Our offense just pushed through and helped out the pitching staff so well. I feel like the pitching staff is on a whole new level from three weeks ago. We’re always growing and trying to improve. I’m excited to see what this super regional turns out to be.”

(On first-pitch strikes)
“It’s huge. Ralph always harps on it a good bit. He’s right for it. It makes a big difference, making the batters off balance and always on their toes. Making the defense confident behind us is really important. First-pitch strikes are good.”

(On growth of pitching staff)
“After that Texas A&M series and the SEC Tournament, we really had to look at ourselves in the mirror and really figure out what it was we needed to work on. In the past week, we have put in so much work. We have really held ourselves accountable to hitting our spots. Close to perfection we have been expecting for ourselves. It showed this weekend. Caylan did awesome yesterday, and I felt like I was hitting my spots pretty well.”

Meghan Gregg #55
(On hitting during the regional)
“I felt really good at the plate this weekend. I think having teammates getting hits gives me more confidence. We had 12 hits today. That’s a lot. It didn’t really show on the scoreboard, but that really adds to it. I felt good at the plate.”

(On what they learned about themselves during weekend)
“Especially yesterday you could see it — as did everyone else — we never give up. I don’t think we ever thought we were going to lose. We stayed calm and just kept pushing and we got what we wanted.”

(On preparing for Texas A&M)
“We’re going to start getting to work starting now. We’re done celebrating. We have lots of film on them. We’ve obviously played them three times about three weeks ago. We’re going to start preparing right now to get focused and get our heads right.”

Longwood Head Coach Kathy Riley
(Opening Statement)
“Tennessee earned the game today.They played well, Matty Moss pitched very well, and the hitters put together enough pressure on us and scored three runs, so they deserved to win. But I thought it was a good, hard fought battle. It would’ve been nice if we would’ve put together a few more hits so that we could’ve made the game a little closer.”

(On UT pitcher Matty Moss)
“Matty threw 19 out of 25 first-pitch strikes in the game that we lost, the first game of the tournament, and so today what we really wanted to do was go in and be more aggressive early in the count. And probably if you said what was one failing that we really had today, I think that was it. We didn’t want her to dictate the whole at-bat and really the rhythm of every at-bat. And then when you let a pitcher go in there and get a first-pitch strike all the time, they get a lot of confidence and she gets to really work within her own framework all the time and so I would have liked to be more aggressive early in the count.”

Sydney Gay #4
(On the overall atmosphere of the weekend playing at Tennessee)
“It’s different for me because I’ve obviously never been to Tennessee before. I just came in excited, and I knew that we had to play hard teams so we had to just keep the competition up. After losing one game at first, being in the losers’ bracket, I think we came out even stronger, I think that honestly might have helped us even. We just had fun out there.”

(On pitching to Tennessee’s Meghan Gregg)
“I think it’s just coming in and really trusting (Kaylynn Batten) with making the decisions and knowing each batter. With her, I’d say just keep it off the plate, because she is a good hitter and she can really get around those balls. But just mix it up and keep her off balance the whole time, throw a curve out way off the plate, usually they don’t know its a strike so they’ll just wait on it. So just keep her off balanced.”

Justina Augustine #55
(On facing Matty Moss as an opposing hitter)
“Matty Moss came out and threw hard, and was really hitting her corners well, and so we came in today knowing that. She’s a really good pitcher who can hit her spots.”

(On the overall atmosphere of the weekend playing at Tennessee)
“We came into this tournament with a goal that we were going to make it to the regional championship, and we achieved that goal. I’ve been here before, so I was kind of used to the atmosphere, but it was nice obtaining our goal and although we wish we could have won, it was nice to have that goal achieved.”

-UT Athletics

By WNML Staff

Dave Serrano concluded his 6-season tenure as Tennessee baseball coach on Saturday.

After the season-ending loss to Missouri, Serrano visited with Vince Ferrara and John Wilkerson in the postgame. This was the final radio interview for Serrano as UT’s coach.

He was candid in speaking about the game, the series, the season, his career at Tennessee and even told them what the future holds for him.

Serrano in postgame:
“I will coach again, and I will be very successful. There’s no doubt in my mind. That’s not being arrogant. That’s just being confident.”

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — No. 8 Tennessee rallied for an unbelievable comeback win, scoring seven runs with two outs in the seventh inning to defeat No. 25 USC Upstate, 7-3, in Saturday’s NCAA Regional at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium.

The Spartans’ pitching duo of Lexi Shubert and Holly McKinnon held the Volunteers without a hit for 6.2 innings before Haley Bearden broke up the no-hitter with a clutch, pinch-hit single to drive in Megan Geer and Scarlet McSwain, who both reached on walks earlier in the inning. The hit cut the Upstate lead to 3-2 before Aubrey Leach launched a three-run homer to center field to send the crowd into a frenzy and give UT its first lead of the afternoon. It was just the second career home run for the sophomore leadoff hitter, who is primarily a slapper.

The Vols (46-10) continued to pour it on with a Meghan Gregg two-run blast into the outfield bleachers to extend the lead to 7-3. The homer was Gregg’s 13th of the year, tying a career high, and also increased her RBI total to 75, putting her in sole possession of third place on Tennessee’s single-season RBI list.

Freshman pitcher Caylan Arnold was solid in her NCAA Tournament debut, allowing just one earned run and three hits in six innings of work. The Maryville, Tenn., native improved to 20-8 on the year with the win and defeated a ranked opponent for the ninth time this season in the process.

UT found themselves in an early hole after committing two errors and giving up a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning. The Vols came out on the wrong side of a play at the plate after Upstate’s Ansley Gilstrap was ruled safe at home after being caught in a rundown. Replay showed that she never touched the plate but the call was upheld. Ryan Rector drove in another run with a sacrifice fly to give the Spartans a 2-0 lead after one inning of play.

Following the rocky start, Arnold settled in to retire the next 14 batters she faced before allowing two hits and a run in the run in the bottom of the sixth.

Shubert carried a perfect game into the sixth inning before walking the bases loaded with one out. McKinnon came on in relief to strike out pinch hitter Taylor Rowland and get Gregg to ground out to keep the no-hitter intact and end the threat.

Megan Obier led the USC Upstate (45-12) attack with a hit, a run and an RBI while Rector also drove in a run for the Spartans in the loss. Upstate will take on the winner of today’s second game between Ohio State and Longwood in an elimination game later this evening at 5 p.m.

UP NEXT: Tennessee advances to tomorrow’s regional final and will face the winner of tonight’s elimination game at noon on Sunday. The Vols need just one win to advance to the NCAA Super Regionals next week.

ONE FOR THE AGES: Tennessee entered the seventh inning of Saturday’sincredible comeback win with no hits and a three-run deficit. It was the Vols’ first victory this season when trailing entering the seventh inning (previously 0-7). The Big Orange recorded all four of their hits and all seven runs with two outs in the inning. UT had just three runners reach base entering the seventh, all via walks in the sixth inning.

LEACH LAUNCHES GAME WINNER: Sophomore second baseman Aubrey Leach came up with the biggest hit of her career, hammering a 3-2 pitch over the center-field wall to put Tennessee ahead 5-3 in the seventh. The Vols were down to their final strike before the Texas native hit her second home run of the season, which proved to be the game winner.

POSTGAME QUOTES

Tennessee vs. USC Upstate

SCORE: Tennessee 7, USC Upstate 3

Tennessee Co-Head Coach Karen Weekly

(Opening statement)

“That was a heck of a game, probably the greatest comeback in the history of Tennessee softball. I certainly don’t remember a game quite like that where everything appeared to be lost from the outside at least going into the seventh inning. To put up seven runs in the seventh inning like we did, to be down two strikes to our last out, the team kept believing. We kept saying, ‘We’re going to win this game; we’re going to win this game, but we’re not going to win it on emotion. It’s got to be done playing smarter, not harder.’ I think we just got better and better as the game went along, and fortunately, we were good enough before we made our last out. Our kids just came up with some incredibly, incredibly big at-bats. I can’t say enough about Caylan Arnold’s performance because that was a rough first inning but not her fault. To maintain composure like she did and keep the score as low as she did to give us a chance. That’s a very good team. They play really sound softball. Sound softball starts with good pitching and good defense. USC Upstate is very good in the circle and on defense. You saw them make some incredibly good plays today. Even early in the game, we hit some good balls, but they made some really good plays.”

(On pinch hitting Haley Bearden for CJ McClain)

“CJ does a lot of things for us, but in that situation, we needed possibly a ball over the fence — which Haley can provide — or a ball in the gap to score a couple of runs. Haley is a strong girl, and she has a good solid bat. I’ll tell you something that happened there. Taylor Rowland had a pinch-hit situation but didn’t have a good at-bat because she didn’t have a good plan. The good thing that happened was I got on Taylor for not having a good approach, but what Taylor did as soon as Haley’s number was called, I turned and saw Taylor grabbed Haley. She had both hands on her shoulders, telling Haley, ‘This is what you need to do. This is what you need to look for, and basically learn from my at-bat.’ That was a teammate not feeling sorry for herself because she didn’t do her job but helping a teammate learn from her mistake.”

(On Caylan Arnold keeping energy up after being down early)

“I kept looking up at the board. The way we were struggling at the plate, it felt like we were down by more than we were. I kept seeing there was one hit on the board; she was throwing a gem. She really was. After the first inning, we said, ‘Hey, this is the first inning. Let’s not panic and try to get everything back in one swing. Everyone just do your job. We’ll score runs.’ That was harder to do than we thought. I think what was happening, we were in a hurry to make outs. After the fifth inning, I keep this quality at-bat chart. There weren’t many marks on there because I chart every pitch. We weren’t going deep into counts. We had one six-pitch at-bat at the end of the fifth inning. Every other at-bat was two pitches, three pitches, four pitches. We weren’t making her throw enough pitches. We were swinging at pitches out of the zone really early. We were in a hurry to makes outs. One of our goals is to get our best pitch. It’s not about getting a hit. We got it confused. We were trying to get hits and trying too hard to force the action instead of getting your best pitch and stick to the process. If you can get yourself locked into the process and playing smarter, instead of trying to play harder, good things will happen, but it took us an awful long time to do that. Sixth inning, we were more patient and selfish about getting a good pitch. We loaded the bases. We almost pushed it through. What the key was is we didn’t get it done in the sixth inning, there was a lot of talk that the momentum was on our side. We had momentum. Let’s get out there, hold them and start over again.”

Tennessee Sophomore Catcher Haley Bearden

(On coming in to pinch hit with bases loaded and two outs in the top of the 7th)
“I was focused on the process and getting my pitch. I didn’t want to swing at anything bad. I wanted to get my pitch. I knew the top of the lineup was coming up, so I wanted to get on base for them. Whenever I came through, I was really excited. I felt like I was going to come through the whole time. I had a lot of confidence in myself.”

(On what the players were telling her before the at-bat)

“Taylor Rowland was the first person to face that pitcher, and she told me that if I get two strikes just to sit slow and adjust fast. I went up  and the pitcher threw it right where I like to hit it.”

Tennessee Sophomore Infielder Aubrey Leach

(On her go-ahead home run)
“Those are the kinds of moments we live for. You want to be in that situation. We had a plan, and my job was to stick to the plan and put a good swing on the pitch I needed to hit.”

(On her feelings after the home run)

“It was a complete team effort. There is no doubt that we needed everyone. We had people coming off the bench to hit and pinch run. It was a complete team effort, and there is no way I can take all the credit for that.”

-UT Athletics