After nine hours of softball Wednesday, the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide was only able to split the doubleheader against No. 11 Tennessee, winning 3-2 in the first game and dropping a 5-2 decision in the second. With the loss, Alabama moved to 26-1 on the season. It was a slow start offensively for both Alabama and Tennessee, but the Volunteers were the first to get on the scoreboard. A single by Cheyanne Tarango put the Vols up 1-0. The Tide was able to put together enough offense off singles by Jazlyn Lunceford and Kayla Braud and a double by Jennifer Fenton to score two runs to give Bama a 2-1 lead. But an error in the sixth by the Tide gave Tennessee a run to tie it 2-2. Then, both Alabama’s and Tennessee’s defenses took control of the game. The Volunteers’ ace Ivy Renfroe and Alabama’s Jackie Traina recorded 14 strikeouts between the sixth and 11th innings. Both pitchers reached career-highs in innings pitched, 11, and strikeouts. Traina held the Vols to nine hits on the night while Renfroe allowed five hits. The Tide’s five hits tied for its second lowest number of hits in a game this season. After throwing 197 pitches in 11 innings and recording a career-high 15 strikeouts, Traina was able to make an impact on offense as well. Stepping up to the plate with two outs in the final inning, Traina hit a walk-off home run on the first pitch to end the first game. “I was so stoked,” she said. “I wasn’t doing too hot at the plate, and I saw right before me that she was throwing a first pitch changeup, so I was like, ‘I’m going to sit on this first pitch changeup right now,’ and it happened to work out for me.” Traina said she was surprised with her 11-inning performance, attributing it to a second wind. “I was thinking, ‘Thank goodness we run a lot in practice,’” Traina said. “I was feeling fine. I was very surprised that my legs were still doing well, and I still had a lot of body awareness. These are the things we practice for. I felt great.” In the second game of the night, Tennessee’s other Renfroe sister, Ellen, recorded seven strikeouts and held the Tide to just three hits, its lowest of the season. A three-run homer by Melissa Brown put the Vols up in the second inning, but a two-run homer by Kaila Hunt would put the Tide within one at 3-2. A home run from Madison Shipman in the fifth and a run in the sixth would put the Vols permanently in front, 5-2. “I thought [Ivy Renfroe] looked better than [Ellen Renfroe], and we didn’t take advantage of it, for whatever reason,” head coach Patrick Murphy said. “[Leslie Jury’s] got to match her pitch-by-pitch. She can’t give up a three-run home run. She’s got to match the zeros until we can score and then give us a chance. She’s a freshman, and she’s going to have to do it sometime. I think the more that she’s out there, the more she’s going to learn, and we’re going to need her to learn.”

Alabama’s grueling schedule continues with the Easton Alabama Challenge with No. 25 DePaul and Longwood, followed by another doubleheader at Auburn on Tuesday. Murphy said the nonconference weekend would give players more opportunities to improve. “I said last year that I wouldn’t do the two mid-week back-to-back weeks, and look what happened,” he said. “We had Tennessee tonight, and we’ve got Auburn Tuesday. We’re going to get a lot of people in this weekend; it’s a nonconference weekend. I want to see some more people. Give more opportunities to everybody again. We’re going to go after every game for a win.”