May 6, 2005

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - The No. 10 University of Tennessee softball team (53-11, 17-8 Southeastern Conference) completes regular-season play with a three-game series at LSU (30-18, 12-15 SEC) this weekend. The squads play a doubleheader on Saturday and a single contest on Sunday with both days' play set to begin at 1 p.m. CDT. Sunday's contest will be broadcast live on SEC-TV (Fox Sports Net South in the Knoxville area).

"LSU is one of the premier programs in all of softball and finished third at the College World Series last year," Co-Head Coach Ralph Weekly said. "A lot of those players return.

"They started slow for an LSU team, but have come on very strong, sweeping two of their past three series. They will be a very tough challenge in Baton Rouge.

The Lady Vols are coming off a 5-0 week which saw the Big Orange take care of Marshall in a doubleheader, 3-0 and 5-1, before sweeping Ole Miss in a three-game set in Oxford, 4-0, 3-1 and 9-0 (5 inn.). LSU completed an impressive road sweep of No. 16 Florida by 4-3, 3-0 and 10-0 scores.

The Lady Vols are currently threatening to break some long-standing UT season records. First off, the Big Orange's sterling 53-11 mark not only places Tennessee just three wins from breaking the school mark set by last season's squad's 55-16 record, but UT's .828 winning percentage is also on pace to set a school standard. The current mark of .794 is held by the 1996 squad (54-14).

The Lady Vols have shown an amazing combination of strength and balance this season, coming in among the top three in each of the major statistical categories of batting average, earned run average and fielding percentage. UT is third nationally in both batting average (.333) and earned run average (0.85) and leads the country in fielding percentage (.983). Tennessee is ahead of all other SEC schools in each of those categories as well. Not only is UT the only school to be ranked in the top three of each of those statistical categories, but the Big Orange is actually the only team to have its squad ranked in the top 15 of each category.

In all-time action between the Lady Vols and the Tigers, LSU holds a 15-5 advantage including a 9-1 edge in games contested in Baton Rouge. Last season, the teams split two games with Tennessee rebounding from a 2-1 loss in the first game to win 4-0 in the second.

Following this weekend's action, the Big Orange will head to Gainesville, Fla., and the SEC Tournament, set to begin on Thursday. The tourney has a double-elimination format and the championship game will be contested on Sunday.