Tennessee softball came out firing against Virginia.
The Lady Vols hit back-to-back home runs off the bats of Kiki Milloy and Taylor Pannell to open the game before claiming a 12-0 win over the Cavaliers.
Tennessee, the No. 3 national seed, continued to pour it on as it needed just five innings to enact the run-rule and win its second game of the Knoxville Regional.
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After the two-run first inning, the Lady Vols carried the momentum into the second. After McKenna Gibson and Rylie West pushed runs across, Sophia Nugent took Virginia deep to dead center. This gifted Tennessee a 7-0 advantage.
In the third, the bats stayed hot. Pannell ripped a double to score Milloy from first and then West teed off a three-run shot to center. The Lady Vols used this to created an 11-0 lead after just three frames.
Tennessee added a final run in the fourth off a Milloy single that pushed Bella Faw home.
In total, it was 11 hits and four home runs that resulted in the onslaught of scoring that was produced.
In the circle, Payton Gottshall was dominant a day after her counterpart Karlyn Pickens tossed a complete game shutout. Gottshall went all five innings while shutting down the Cavaliers.
The Lady Vols' hurler allowed just three hits and no runs on five strikeouts.
Tennessee is now a win away from advancing to the Super Regional stage of the bracket for the second-straight season. This would be the program's 13th appearance.
As the 3-seed, the Lady Vols would host the event welcoming the winner of the Tuscalooa Regional. Alabama is the favorite to advance after winning its first two matches.
Tennessee will face the team to advance out of the losers' bracket on Sunday for the right to move on. It will need to win once to earn a spot in the Super Regionals while it will take being beaten twice on the same day to be eliminated.
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