STARKVILLE — Growing up as an Atlanta Braves fan, Meghan Gregg decided to replicate her swing after a Brave.
Gregg didn’t pattern her swing off Chipper Jones, one of the best Braves in the last 15 years. Instead, she watched Andruw Jones when he stepped into the batter’s box.
The replication has reaped dividends for Gregg in her two seasons with the Tennessee softball program. It especially paid off Thursday, as she went 2-for-3 with an RBI to help No. 10 Tennessee beat South Carolina 5-1 in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference tournament at Nusz Park.
“My hitting coach was mainly a part of that,” Gregg said. “He just would cut out small snippets out of newspapers from the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and I would just kind of model after him.”
Gregg said she began working with that hitting coach at a young age, so when the suggestion was made, she followed it.
Jones hit .254 with 434 home runs in his 17-year Major League Baseball career with the Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, and New York Yankees.
“I’ve really changed mine a little bit since then, but that’s still my core,” Gregg said.
With two outs in the first inning, Gregg singled to right field and stole second base. Megan Geer then hit a two-run home run to give the Lady Volunteers (41-13) a 2-0 lead. Gregg drove home Tennessee’s fifth run with a groundout in the sixth. She singled to right field in the fifth but was stranded at third.
“She’s really maturing as a hitter,” Tennessee coach Karen Weekly said. “She’s a great hitter. She just does everything well as a hitter.”
The Williamson, Georgia, native leads the Lady Volunteers with a .395 batting average. The shortstop hit .306 with 14 home runs and 51 RBIs and was named to the SEC All-Freshman team last season.
Weekly said Gregg was pressing at the beginning of the season and wasn’t delivering like she did as a freshman.
“She was swinging out of the zone a little bit because in her mind she should be better this year than she was last year,” Weekly said. “What was happening, quite frankly, people respected her ability, so they weren’t giving her as good of pitches to hit. She was trying to do too much in hitter’s count.”
Midway through the season, Weekly and her husband, Ralph, who is the co-head coach, told Gregg she needed to be willing to take a walk. Weekly said they saw the “light bulb go on” for Gregg after the conversation. As a result, she said a different Gregg emerged. Weekly said Gregg’s ability to be coached makes her special.
Gregg hopes to keep her hot hitting going at 1:30 p.m. today (ESPNU) when No. 3 seed Tennessee faces No. 7 seed LSU in the semifinals.
“I just really tried to keep things simple, one pitch at a time,” Gregg said. “I told myself to win each pitch, and I think that’s what made me so successful.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Ben Wait on Twitter @bcwait
Ben Wait reports on Mississippi State University sports for The Dispatch.
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