ESPN College Sports

OKLAHOMA CITY -- No team arrived in Oklahoma City last week having hit fewer home runs on the road to the Women's College World Series than Tennessee. Not that the Lady Vols are without their own kind of clout.

Call it staying power.

Tennessee jumped out in front of Arizona on Monday night behind a pair of early home runs from freshman Alexia Clay and junior Shannon Doepking. The Vols cruised to a 3-0 win in the opening game of the best-of-three championship series at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium.

Monica Abbott ran her scoreless streak in this World Series to 28 innings, striking out seven and allowing four hits in another command performance, but the splendid southpaw's string of zeroes was almost an afterthought on this night. Facing a pitcher who looked the part of a weary warrior after pitching five complete games in four days just to get to Monday night, the Lady Vols did exactly what they needed to do at the plate by taking advantage of Taryne Mowatt's mistakes.

But they did it with a tool they've kept hidden for most of the season.

Coming into the game, Tennessee had hit a grand total of 38 home runs in 68 games. Even after Monday's fireworks, the team is still on pace to finish with the second-lowest total of home runs during the six-year tenure of co-coaches Ralph and Karen Weekly. But having one of the lowest homer totals at Tennessee is a little like being the least honest politician in Washington. Home runs have never been a big part of the Tennessee attack -- and not just because stray shots to left field at Tyson Park in Knoxville run the danger of taking out windshields on the highway that runs behind the outfield wall.

Thirty teams averaged at least one home run per game this season, but all are watching at home as a team that averaged just 0.59 home runs per game plays for its first championship. Taking a page from the Arizona school of the short game and producing a string of standout slap hitters under the direct tutelage of Karen Weekly, the Lady Vols have long been more adept at manufacturing runs than blasting them out of thin air.

But even as that mentality paved the way for a possible championship in the present, the home runs that sailed over the fence Monday represented one way in which the program may fill the inevitable void left by Abbott's impending departure.

"Probably more personnel and style of game we've played," Weekly said of the roots of the traditionally modest home run totals. "But it's something we want more of. And what we got tonight is what we'd like to see. It's more of the hitters in the middle of the order hitting the ball deep."

Clay, who didn't find out until batting practice that she would be in the starting lineup for the first time this World Series, is a perfect example of what the Weeklys can do with the raw promise of powerful hitters.

The all-time home run leader in Indiana high school softball, the freshman has a power hitter's frame and the bat speed to match. Before driving a 2-0 pitch to center that slipped just off the end of Caitlin Lowe's outstretched glove in the top of the second inning, Clay had just five doubles and three home runs in 56 appearances and 30 starts, but her potential was far more impressive than her slugging percentage.

"There are always things high-school hitters need to do a little different, changes they need to make to adjust to college pitching," Weekly said. "But I also believe a hitter is a hitter. A kid like Lexie has a hitter's mentality. So even if a hitter may not do everything picture perfect, some of the best hitters I've coached didn't have the best fundamentals. But they just had a mentality that they were a hitter and they loved hitting and they weren't going to be denied. They could swing at bad pitches, or put a bad swing on a good pitch and be successful."

And so even in a program where most of the power has come from the pitching circle, Clay found a good environment in which to work on her craft.

"The Weeklys, we have a very similar approach to hitting," Clay said. "There are some things I had to fine tune, and kind of adjust to the way they want me to hit and work with the way I want to hit. And I think we found a good, happy medium. There hasn't really been a ton of change. Hitting is very basic; it's kind of see the ball, hit the ball and get your hands through."

Of course, it's more than Clay, who happened to be the first player to step forward on Monday. In Tonya Callahan, the Lady Vols have a proven slugger who led the team with 11 home runs this season. Freshman Tiffany Huff, despite hitting just six home runs to date, has as much power potential as anyone on the roster and possibly any freshman in the nation. And as Doepking proved two innings after Clay, even the lineup's role players are developing power.

Power always seems to play a role in Oklahoma City, where the fences are short and the pitchers are elite. After back-to-back third-place finishes with teams that hit just four home runs in 10 World Series games, the coaching staff felt it would need more home runs to survive this year's loaded field. They didn't hit any in their first three games.

"I think you see it because the pitchers are so good that they don't make as many mistakes," Weekly said. "And you know, when you hit a home run, you've hit a mistake. Very rarely do you see a home run hit of a pitch that went exactly where she wanted it to go. But I think they make so few mistakes that it's a matter of your hitters being ready to capitalize when they do. And I think that's what we did differently tonight. When [Mowatt] put the ball in the zone, we were more prepared to capitalize on it than we were on Friday night."

Whether or not they close the deal against Arizona on Tuesday (ESPN2, 8 p.m. ET) or Wednesday, the Lady Vols will enter next season without Abbott. But Clay will be there, as will Callahan, Huff and Doepking. And as more and more balls follow the same route over the outfield wall, the Lady Vols just might slug their way back to Oklahoma City.

For now, they would settle for leaving here with a bang.

Graham Hays is a regular contributor to ESPN.com's softball coverage. E-mail him at Graham.Hays@espn3.com.