Tennessee softball’s pitching staff has been among the nation’s best under associate head coach Megan Rhodes Smith. In 2026, the Lady Vols led Division I in ERA for the second straight year, posting a 1.47 mark while allowing a nation-best 3.81 hits per seven innings.

That staff included Karlyn Pickens, one of the best pitchers in program history. She has since moved on to her post-collegiate career.

The rest of the staff went to work this fall. Through eight exhibitions, bullpens and intersquad scrimmages, Rhodes Smith saw a group shaping up for a successful 2027.

“We’re not where I want us to be yet, but I think that’s also the good news,” Rhodes Smith told me. “There’s some falls where you leave team practice or even you get to the end of November and you feel very ready. And that’s actually a scary spot to be in. And so I think that we still have things to push forward and work on.”

Tennessee didn’t see Power 4-level competition this fall. Facing a JUCO or lower-level program in October is a lot different than what’s waiting when conference play ramps up, and that includes an immediate road trip to College Station, Texas.

So the fall is about checking whether they’re working the zones, getting ahead in counts and responding well when they fall behind.

Even in the fall, there were some good teaching moments, especially in the few spots where the staff gave up runs and things changed with runners on base.

“It’s definitely more about the process and how we’re going about our business than the results,” Rhodes Smith said. “The results are nice, but we know that we’ve got a bigger test coming.”

The real test came from their own dugout

Some of the best lessons came in intersquad scrimmages. Tennessee’s hitters gave the pitching staff all it could handle.

“I have been so excited about the way they forced our pitchers to fail, because we’ve really needed that,” Rhodes Smith said. “It’s opened up some lessons for the pitching staff in ways that I can talk about. But until you feel it, it doesn’t. Until you’re failing and going, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do it that way,’ it just doesn’t ring as true.”

Those at-bats showed this staff can’t count on movement alone to get swings. Rhodes Smith wants her pitchers breaking the ball through the zone, getting ahead and putting hitters in swing mode so they stay in control. Against their own lineup, they didn’t always do that.

Who made the biggest jump this fall?

When I asked Rhodes Smith who improved the most from start to finish this fall, she didn’t have to think long about her answer.

“Can I say Erin?”

That answer was great to hear, given the bigger role Erin Nuwer will have this season. Nuwer was more than solid in 2026, finishing with a 15-1 record, a 1.01 ERA, a .149 opponents’ batting average and 90 strikeouts in 96.2 innings. She came back this fall with specific goals, physically and mentally, and has already checked off enough of them that she and Rhodes Smith are talking about next steps.

When I talked with Nuwer this fall, she pointed to her mentality as her biggest area of growth. She wants to play freer and have more fun in the circle. Rhodes Smith has noticed the change, too, especially in how Nuwer handles it when something goes wrong.

“She’s very honest and her feedback is so important,” Rhodes Smith said. “She’s not needing me to say, ‘Hey, this is what’s going on.’ She knows immediately and she’s ready to make the change.”

There are some new wrinkles, too, but those will stay under wraps until the season. She might be the most excited person in the program to get on the field in February.

Mardjetko got a fall unlike last year

Sage Mardjetko’s fall looked a lot different than it did a year ago. Last fall was spent on drills and rehabbing her hip. In the spring, Tennessee did whatever it could to keep her on the field, and there were plenty of weeks without many bullpens.

She still finished 2026 with a 16-3 record, a .87 WHIP, a 1.26 ERA and 171 strikeouts in 127.2 innings. Now she will head into her senior year with a full offseason and fall work behind her.

“It’s just been so refreshing for her to have a fall,” Rhodes Smith said. “So for her to be able to get stronger and get her body in a position to take more load or take load at different times, it’s exciting.”

That means building up her pitch count and her ability to go back-to-back days, even three in a row. If Mardjetko ever has to carry a full SEC weekend, I believe she would be ready.

Rhodes Smith also sees a different person off the field, one who has matured a lot since her sophomore year.

Depth behind the top two

Nuwer and Mardjetko are the expected 1A and 1B. Behind them is a group pushing for more innings.

Peyton Hardenburger didn’t get a fall last year either and only pitched 12 innings during the 2026 regular season.

“I think for Peyton, specifically, her getting to work against our hitters has been the biggest thing, because she worked very hard this summer on just kind of improving some break numbers, working on location,” Rhodes Smith said.

“And so now just getting to work live against the hitters or work in certain drills where she’s having to perform on command is, it’s just nice to have that space and time that we didn’t have last year.”

Maddi Rutan will definitely be in the circle at times. In my opinion, she is one of the most intriguing players on this team. Rutan can do a lot. Throughout the fall, I watched her pitch, hit and play anywhere in the infield when needed.

In an Oct. 11 exhibition, Rutan struck out the side in the first and kept piling up strikeouts through four solid innings. She also showed her awareness and quick twitch by snagging a low liner back to her for an out.

When hitters challenged her this fall, Rutan dug in and succeeded.

“I would say that what I like about Maddi is exactly what we just talked about,” Rhodes Smith said. “She is the best when the lights are the brightest. She loves the challenge of the moment. She loves the big moment and the intensity of it. That’s just who she is as a player. She’s an intense player.”

The two freshmen who pitched this fall, Bailee Shelton and Maggie Krause, have been steady. Krause keeps things simple and gives Tennessee a lefty arm with a different look. Shelton has a good low pitch to work with.

Neither came in carrying the emotional baggage that can sometimes slow freshmen down. I asked Rhodes Smith what she meant by “baggage.”

“There’s not a lot of emotional baggage or fearful baggage that we’re having to work through,” she said. “They just go out and do their thing, and then we talk about it. But a lot of times with freshmen, we’re having to overcome their expectations for themselves. And they’re not used to failing. They’re not used to struggling.

“And so until we can handle that, they usually don’t move forward very well because those girls have just been so upfront and so simple about their feedback and what they expect and the way that they receive feedback. We haven’t had to waste as much time trying to wade through all of that.”

Morrison runs the show

Elsa Morrison made a jump this year similar to Nuwer’s. A year ago, she was still figuring it all out. This fall, she ran the field with confidence, knew when to go out and talk to her pitcher and wasn’t afraid to give straight feedback.

Rhodes Smith wants both her pitcher and her catcher to believe the game belongs to them because their roles are so different.

"If the pitcher believes it’s her game, then she’s going to take a lot of ownership about how she throws the ball," Rhodes Smith said. "But on the flip side, you want the catcher to believe it’s her game. And I think that Elsa does believe that. I think that she feels very responsible for the pitchers."

The questions Morrison asks are on a different level now, according to Rhodes Smith.

Avary Stockwell is learning right behind her. Stockwell had some strong moments in the fall games, and Rhodes Smith said she never lets coaching go in one ear and out the other. She’ll come back days later and say she was thinking about something they discussed. She also has a great role model in Morrison.

Ready to compete

During the fall, there were times when Tennessee’s pitchers fell behind 3-1 or 3-0 and battled back. Rhodes Smith is most confident this staff wants to beat the hitter, even when things aren’t perfect.

"I think what I’m most confident in is their competitiveness," Rhodes Smith said. "I think they recognize everything won’t always be perfect, but they want to beat the hitter. And that’s the space that I want them to stay in because we are going to fall behind at some point. And when that happens, I want that competitive desire to take over rather than being afraid about where they need to put the pitch."

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