The No. 1-ranked Lady Vols polished off a 5-0 weekend on Sunday with a 6-2 victory over Appalachian State at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium on the final day of the Tennessee Invitational.<\/p>\n
Tennessee improved to 19-0 with the win, using a midgame surge and a dominant outing in the circle from Karlyn Pickens (6-0).<\/p>\n
The Mountaineers (13-5) struck quickly in the first inning. After a hit batter began the game, Makayla McClain homered off the scoreboard in left-center to give App State a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Tennessee answered with a three-run third inning. Sophia Knight singled and moved into scoring position before Gabby Leach followed with a base hit and a stolen base. Ella Dodge lifted a sacrifice fly to center to plate the Lady Vols’ first run, and Elsa Morrison added a sacrifice fly to right to tie the game. Taelyn Holley then tripled to left and scored on a single by Alannah Leach to give Tennessee a 3-2 advantage.<\/p>\n
The Lady Vols added insurance in the sixth as Mackenzie Butt doubled down the left-field line and Knight drew a walk to set the table for Dodge, who blasted a three-run home run to center field to extend the lead to 6-2. Dodge finished with four RBIs in the game and totaled 11 over five games during the weekend.<\/p>\n
Pickens earned the win with a complete-game performance, tying her career high with 15 strikeouts. After allowing the two-run homer in the first, she held Appalachian State to one hit the rest of the way and did not allow a run over the final six innings.<\/p>\n
The righty retired the side in order in the third and fourth frames and struck out 11 of the final 17 batters she faced.<\/p>\n
Tennessee recorded nine hits in the win, with Knight and Leach collecting two apiece.<\/p>\n
Appalachian State is the first team to score more than one run on the Lady Vols this season.<\/p>\n
DUE UP<\/p>\n
Tennessee welcomes in-state foe Belmont to Sherri Parker Lee Stadium on Tuesday, March 3. First pitch against the Bruins is set for 5 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The No. 1-ranked Lady Vols polished off a 5-0 weekend on Sunday with a 6-2 victory over Appalachian…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2323,2314,2317,2313,2325,2413,2335,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,2327,2321,185,2324,2350,2311,8161,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-601242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-events","13":"tag-baseball-finals","14":"tag-baseball-games","15":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","16":"tag-baseball-teams","17":"tag-champion-seasons-in-major-league-baseball","18":"tag-home-run","19":"tag-major-league-baseball","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","24":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","25":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","26":"tag-mlb","27":"tag-mlb-playoffs","28":"tag-mlb-postseason","29":"tag-outdoor-sports","30":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","31":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-sports-events","34":"tag-strikeout","35":"tag-team-sports","36":"tag-tennessee-lady-volunteers-basketball","37":"tag-turf-sports","38":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}