The first pitch in a critical three-game SEC series between No. 1 Texas softball and No. 5 Tennessee officially came at 8:03 p.m. Friday, but the real games began after just one inning.
Tennessee ace Karlyn Pickens, the SEC leader with a 0.94 ERA, retired the Longhorns in order in the first inning. Teagan Kavan, the Texas ace and the SEC leader in wins with 18, then did the same to the Vols.
But that’s all the fans at sold-out McCombs Field saw of Pickens, who left the game after one inning because of some strategic substitutions by Tennessee coach Karen Weekly. Sure, Texas and Kavan took the first game 3-0, but Weekly thinks Pickens’ limited work Friday will pay off when the series resumes Saturday at 5 p.m.
“There's nothing wrong with Karlyn, she's great," Weekly told the ESPN announcers during the game. "Just something that we've kind of thought about doing, kind of see how the game is flowing, and I kind of stuck with my game plan going in."
The move came as no surprise to Texas coach Mike White, who saw Weekly use a similar strategy in a series win over Oklahoma a few weeks ago.
“The strategy could be to see Teagan again and maybe come back at her when she's a little more tired,” White said. “There’s different ways of thinking about it. But we just worry about what we're going to do. And fortunately, we're able to score three runs, and Teagan pitched a shutout, and you never lose shutout.”
Teagan Kavan: Texas pitcher overcomes shaky start
Oh, about that shutout. Unlike Weekly, White leaned on Kavan (18-2) for the entire game and she delivered her second seven-inning, complete-game shutout of the season. The sophomore showed a little too much juice while walking two of the first three Tennessee batters in the first inning, but she settled down and didn’t allow a hit until the sixth inning.
Kavan understood the magnitude of a top-five contest, and she knew that the matchup between herself and Pickens — the players shared the most recent SEC pitcher of the week award — would draw a lot of eyes from across college softball. Before the game, Kavan tried to temper the energy that even caught the attention of Texas catcher Reese Atwood.
“Reese was just telling me to calm down,” Kavan said. “She kind of knew. The adrenaline just got the best me, (early), and I started to overthrow it a little bit. I think it took me a minute to kind of, like, tell myself it’s just another game ...
