Sometimes athletic competitions were just never meant to be competitive.
Such as this year's Knoxville Regional in the NCAA softball tournament.
Tennessee entered Sherri Parker Lee Stadium as the No. 3 overall seed in the 64-team field and the prohibitive favorite in the four-team regional that also contained Miami of Ohio, Virginia and Dayton. The Lady Volunteers advanced out of the regional Sunday with a 6-0 thumping of Virginia, which capped Tennessee's three-game cakewalk by the combined score of 21-0.
"That's huge, and I don't think that's being done at any other regional in the country," Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said of the weekend shutout. "It takes a weight off the shoulders of the hitters just knowing that our pitchers are going to go out there and hold people. They have the mindset to keep a zero on the board until our offense can figure things out.
"Yesterday and today, we were just locked in."
The Lady Vols never vied with Miami of Ohio, which lost twice to Virginia, but they clobbered the Cavaliers twice by a combined 18-0.
Tennessee (43-10) will now face No. 14 Alabama (36-17) in a best-of-three super regional in Knoxville that is scheduled to begin Friday. The Lady Vols played in Tuscaloosa late last month, defeating the Crimson Tide 5-0 and 2-0 before losing the finale 1-0.
Alabama and Tennessee were the Southeastern Conference's two representatives at last year's Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City, but only one of them will make the trip this season.
"Alabama is going to be different from the last time we saw them, and so are we," Weekly said. "You can't just sit there and say, 'Oh, we've seen them, and we know what to expect.' You have to prepare like it's the first time you're seeing somebody."
Tennessee senior left fielder Rylie West drove in five runs Sunday and got the Lady Vols going with a two-out single to left field in the first inning that scored Kiki Milloy and McKenna Gibson for a 2-0 lead over the Cavaliers (34-20). The Lady Vols added three more runs in the third inning, with Zaida Puni's single to left scoring Milloy and with West collecting a two-run double off the wall in left-center field.
West got her fifth RBI in the fifth inning with a home run to left that made it 6-0.
"I was seeing the ball well, but I was also really locked into our game plan," West said. "Our coaches made it pretty simple and helped us out a lot."
SEC pitcher of the year Karlyn Pickens took a perfect game into the fourth inning and took a no-hitter into the fifth. Her first three innings consisted of just 28 pitches, with 20 of them for strikes, and she had a six-pitch sixth inning.
Pickens wound up allowing two hits and a walk in improving to 21-6.
"She got ahead, and they were swinging early in the count," Weekly said. "She attacked the zone and was reading what the umpire was going to give and not give. She did a really good job of pitching to that."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.