page_title: Tennessee Volunteers softball
section_title: Overview
hierarchical_section_title: Tennessee Volunteers softball / Overview
caption_attribution_description: English: Lady Vols pitcher
context_page_description: The Tennessee Volunteers softball team represents the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Tennessee in NCAA Division I women's softball competition. Coached by husband and wife Ralph and Karen Weekly, the team has become a consistently top tier team in the Southeastern Conference.
  Along with all other UT women's sports teams, it used the nickname "Lady Volunteers" until the 2015–16 school year, when the school dropped the "Lady" prefix from the nicknames of all women's teams except in basketball. In September 2017, the “Lady Volunteers” name was reinstated for all women’s athletics teams.
context_section_description: The Lady Vols first fielded a softball team in 1996 with Jim Beitia as head coach.  In 2002, Tennessee brought in the husband and wife team of Ralph and Karen Weekly as co-head coaches. Since 2004, the team has reached the NCAA Tournament every year and the Women's College World Series five times. In 2007 the Lady Vols managed to make history and set the benchmark by which all future Lady Vol teams will be compared as the squad finished 63–8 for the program's best winning percentage of .887. A third-straight trip to the WCWS ended with Tennessee becoming the first SEC program to reach the best-of-three NCAA Championship Series, before falling to champion Arizona. That year the team managed two wins over No. 4 Arizona and triumphs against No. 6 Northwestern and No. 7 Texas A&M which led to Tennessee spending a record 11 consecutive weeks at No. 1 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll, becoming the first SEC school to reach the lofty top ranking in the league's softball history.
caption: Volunteers softball legend Monica Abbott
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