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Lady Vols softball eliminated in Super Regionals

Tennessee's season comes to an end after a 2-1 loss to Georgia in game two of the Athens Super Regional.

Cortni Emmanuel blasted a line drive into the trees in right-center field to push Georgia past Tennessee 2-1 in eight innings in game two of the Athens Super Regional.

Georgia advances to the Women's College World Series for the second time in three years and fourth time in program history. The Bulldogs won the first game of the best-of-three Super Regional series on Friday, 4-3.

Tennessee falls short of going to Oklahoma City for the third straight season. The Lady Vols have lost four Super Regional games in the last two seasons by a combined total of five runs.

The game was scoreless through six innings with Georgia's Mary Wilson Avant and Tennessee's Matty Moss locked in a pitchers' duel.

After Moss allowed a single to Justice Milz to lead off the top of the seventh, co-head coach Ralph Weekly came out to remove his junior pitcher and bring in sophomore Caylan Arnold from the bullpen.

Moss had allowed three hits and zero walks in six innings. Arnold allowed four earned runs on seven hits and one walk in the previous game on Friday.

The first batter Arnold faced, Alyssa DiCarlo, dropped a fly ball into right-center that fell just out of reach of diving center fielder C.J. McClain. The ball skipped past right fielder Amanda Ayala, allowing pinch runner Taylor Armistead to score from first, giving Georgia the lead.

The stats might have indicated that Moss was rolling, but co-head coach Karen Weekly said other factors showed it was time to go to the bullpen.

"We keep track of her speeds during the game, her speed had dropped the last couple innings, two to three miles per hour and we felt we'd just escaped the last couple innings, they were hitting some balls hard that were going right to people," Karen Weekly said.

"The first few innings she was hitting her spots better and they weren't squaring the ball up as much. Had she still been getting mis-hits up to that point we probably wouldn't have pulled her but it was more what had happened the inning before leading up to that. We felt like her speed was dropping and she was starting to overthrow the ball a little bit and leave it over the plate."

Tennessee rallied in the seventh, putting runners on first and second with two outs. Weekly went to the bench, replacing Jenna Holcomb, a .386 hitter, with pinch-hitter Cailin Hannon, who had a career .231 average entering the game.

The move worked, Hannon tapped a base hit up the middle, driving in her first RBI of the season to tie the game at one.

Emmanuel homered off Arnold in the top of the 8th to put Georgia ahead, then Moss reentered the game to get the final out of the half inning.

Meghan Gregg singled in her final at-bat as a Lady Vol in the bottom half and Chelsea Seggern sent a ball deep to left-center but Ciara Bryan made a leaping grab at the wall to preserve Georgia's lead.

Avant retired the final two batters to send the Bulldogs to Oklahoma City.

In the last two seasons, Tennessee has lost four Super Regional games by a combined five runs.

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