Tennessee softball: How hard does Vols' star pitcher Karlyn Pickens throw?
Tennessee softball: How hard does Vols' star pitcher Karlyn Pickens throw?
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Texas Tech's NiJaree Canady and Tennessee's Karlyn Pickens lead WCWS players to watch
The Oklahoman's Jenni Carlson highlights several Women's College World Series key players to watch.
Tennessee softball begins its seventh appearance in the Women's College World Series against a familiar program, which also happens to be the sport's biggest titan: Oklahoma.
The Vols, however, have already had one successful swing at taking down college softball's Goliath this season, as they took the regular season head-to-head series against the Sooners. It was just one of three SEC regular-season series losses that Oklahoma, which is looking for its fifth straight national championship, had.
A big reason for the Vols' regular-season success was their star junior pitcher Karlyn Pickens, who Tennessee will need to beat the Sooners on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. ET at Devon Park in Oklahoma City.
REQURIED READING: WCWS bracket 2025: Full schedule, matchups for NCAA softball tournament
In that three-game weekend series back in March in Norman, Pickens went 2-0 in 12 2/3 innings of work and struck out 12 Sooners' hitters while giving up just four runs on 10 hits and three walks.
The success the back-to-back SEC Pitcher of the Year had against OU is a small snippet of the dominance that she has showcased this entire season inside the circle for the Vols. A top-10 finalist for the USA Softball Player of the Year award, Pickens put Tennessee on her back in the Knoxville Super Regional vs. Nebraska with back-to-back complete game performances to win the series.
But as fans watch the Vols play for their first WCWS national title with Pickens in the circle, one thing will stand out above all the skills that the North Carolina native has while pitching: how hard she pitches.
Here's what you need to know on how hard Pickens throws inside the circle:
How fast does Tennessee softball's Karlyn Pickens throw?
In short, very, very, very fast — like literally so fast.
In Game 1 of the Knoxville Super Regional, the Vols' right-hander showed that she has more gas in the tank to showcase, as she set a new NCAA record for fastest pitch recorded with a 79.4 mph fastball on the seventh pitch of a first-inning at-bat against Nebraska's Jordy Bahl.
Bahl, who is one of the other top pitchers in the country, would foul off the pitch. As noted by the Big Ten Network's Sydney Supple, Pickens' near 80 mph pitch gave Bahl (or any batter) a reactionary time of .341 of a second to pick up and swing at the pitch. The distance from the rubber on the pitcher's mound to home plate is 43 feet.
Pickens' flame-throwing pitch against the Cornhuskers broke her previous NCAA record of 78.2 mph, which she set back in March against Arkansas. Prior to setting the record against Arkansas in SEC play, Pickens had been tied with former Tennessee pitcher Monica Abbott for the fastest pitch in NCAA history, a record that Abbott held for 13 years.
"She's definitely in a league of her own," Abbott recently told Knox News, part of the USA TODAY Network, on Pickens.
Abbott added: "Some people were like, 'Oh, man, RIP to your record.' And I was like, 'Not really – like hell yeah, look at our sport.' I held that record for 10-plus years ... And we got someone that's just a junior in college breaking it? That's incredible."
REQUIRED READING: There's more to Tennessee flamethrower Karlyn Pickens than the fastest pitch ever in softball
Karlyn Pickens softball stats
Pickens enters the WCWS with a 24-9 record and a 1.00 ERA in 204 innings of work in the circle this season. She has recorded a career-high 280 strikeouts while throwing 22 complete games, two of which came in the Knoxville Super Regional vs. Nebraska.
Her 1.00 ERA in the circle this season leads all Tennessee pitchers and ranks second in the country, only behind Texas Tech's NiJaree Canady's 0.89 ERA.
Here's a game-by-game breakdown of Pickens' stats this season in the NCAA softball tournament:
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