Season Comes to an End in 5-3 Loss to Tennessee

The Alabama softball team saw its season come to an end as it fell in game two of the Knoxville Super Regional to Tennessee, 5-3, Saturday evening at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium. The Crimson Tide finishes its season with a 45-15 record while the Lady Vols advance to the Women’s College World Series with a 49-10 mark.

Alabama raced out to an early 3-0 lead but Tennessee was able to chip away and eventually took the lead for good by scoring four runs over a three inning span to advance to Oklahoma City.

Jackie Traina was tagged with the loss, allowing four runs – three earned on eight hits to finish the season 19-8.

Senior Kayla Braud finished her final game in a Crimson Tide uniform with a 2-for-3 effort. Freshman Haylie McCleney and junior Molly Fichtner also tallied two hits apiece. Fichtner added two RBI and a double.

In what eluded the Tide in the first game of the series was not a problem in the first inning of game two as Alabama cashed in on its first opportunity of the contest. Fichtner gave the Tide a 2-0 lead when she grounded a two-run single up the middle to score Braud and McCleney.

Alabama added another, taking advantage of a couple Tennessee mishaps. With the bases loaded McCleney skied a fly ball to center that was dropped which enabled sophomore Danae Hays to score and give the Tide a 3-0 lead in the second.

Tennessee would fight all the way back and then take its first lead of the contest in the fifth inning. A Madison Shipman sac-fly in the third got the Lady Vols on the board and then they added two more in the fourth on another sac-fly, this time off the bat of Rainey Gaffin. Raven Chavanne then evened the score with a single to left. Kat Dotson tallied the go-ahead run on another sac-fly in the fifth.

UT would cap off its scoring and add an insurance run in the seventh when Melissa Brown singled in a run on a ball that snuck through up the middle.

Braud finished her All-American career as the all-time leader in batting average (.438) at Alabama.  She finished ranked second in on base percentage (.512), runs (271), hits (344) and stolen bases (182).