Tennessee softball coach disputes claim by Texas Tech player regarding Women's College World Series handshake line remarks

In Saturday’s action at the Women’s College World Series, No. 2 Tennessee defeated No. 11 Texas Tech 2-1 on a walk-off home run by Emma Clarke.

The Volunteers advanced to Monday’s semifinal round while the Red Raiders play an elimination game against No. 18 UCLA on Sunday night. However, Tennessee coach Karen Weekly and Texas Tech third baseman Taylor Pannell didn’t move past their game on Saturday.

Following the game, Pannell — who transferred from Tennessee to Texas Tech after last season — claimed that Weekly told her that she made a mistake by leaving Knoxville in the postgame handshake line.

"We were walking through the line just saying 'good game,' and she said that I made a mistake instead of saying 'good game,' which is kind of crazy," Pannell told reporters, including the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Cora Hall.

"Like, celebrate with your team. I just think it's funny she's still thinking about it,” she added. “It's old news. Whatever."

When informed of Pannell’s accusations, Weekly told Hall that the claim was “an outright lie.”

"If you rewatch at the tape of the handshake line, you’re going to see me go just as fast by her as anybody else," Weekly said, via the Knoxville News Sentinel. "I didn’t even know where she was in the handshake line.

“That’s an outright lie,” she continued. “I said good game, like I said to every other player."

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ABC showed video of the postgame handshake line during Sunday’s Texas-Nebraska broadcast and the footage appears to support Weekly’s account of the exchange. Reporter Holly Rowe also said that she heard Weekly say “good game” to every Red Raiders player.

Pannell did react after the handshake line finished, acting as if someone did say what she claimed to hear. But based on the video, if such a remark was made, it appeared to come from a Vols player or other coach besides Weekly.

Pannell played three seasons for Weekly at Tennessee. Last year, as a junior, she hit 16 home runs with 65 RBI and a slash average of .398/.493/.747 in 64 games. She entered the transfer portal on June 12 and announced that she was transferring to Texas Tech on the same day, which prompted allegations of tampering from Weekly.

"I think we can all agree on 2 things: 1) women making money in sports is awesome and long overdue,” Weekly wrote on June 13. “2) contacting players [directly or indirectly] before their season ends and signing them to NIL deals before they enter the portal is wrong. Money isn’t the issue — tampering is!"

The Tennessee coach did not directly single out Pannell, Texas Tech or Red Raiders coach Gerry Glasco in a social media post. However, Weekly spoke more directly on the matter to The Athletic before the NCAA softball tournament began.

“There’s no question they were in contact with our player long before the season was over,” Weekly said to The Athletic’s Lindsay Schnell. “A financial agreement was signed with Texas Tech before she ever went in the portal. [She] told me that.”

Adding to the lingering tensions that were stoked on Saturday were social media posts by Pannell’s father, which have since been deleted. Softball on SI screen-captured the deleted tweets, one of which said “Karen Weekly was right that my kid did make a mistake and that was to play for her.”