Photo via Tennessee Athletics

Tennessee softball star pitcher Karlyn Pickens exited the Lady Vols’ game against Belmont with an apparent right shoulder injury on Tuesday night. After tossing just 18 pitches, she asked for time and grabbed her upper-right arm. After one warm-up pitch, Pickens deemed she would not be able to keep going.

Pickens had earned a line of 1.1 innings pitched, no hits, no runs, one walk and two strikeouts by the time of her exit. She was replaced by Sage Mardjetko in the circle.

Tennessee had built a 1-0 advantage in the game against the Bruins, thanks to an RBI double off the bat of Ella Dodge. The hit scored Sophia Knight, who led off the first inning with a single.

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On the year, heading into Tuesday’s bout, Pickens had appeared in eight games and started in five. She owned a 6-0 record and a save. Through 45.1 innings, she had posted a 0.62 ERA, as well.

In her most recent outing, Pickens ran into some trouble. Against App State, she allowed two early runs, but fired back with 15 strikeouts in the win. This pushed UT to 19-0 on the season as it holds onto its unanimous No. 1 ranking.

“Karlyn went from having probably the worst two innings of her season to the best five innings,” Tennessee softball head coach Karen Weekly said. “To look at the numbers at the end of that game and see that she had 15 strikeouts, the way the game started, and not just the first two batters, but she just wasn’t herself for the first couple innings. But what’s really impressive about that is a lot of athletes don’t have the ability to flip their mindset as quickly as she does, and as quickly as we’ve seen our pitching staff do, and I think it’s a great role model and a great inspiration for the rest of our team.”

The Lady Vols’ game against Belmont is streaming on SECN+.