{"id":316938,"date":"2026-05-31T23:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T23:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/316938\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T23:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T23:26:15","slug":"texas-tech-tennessee-handshake-controversy-explained-how-taylor-pannell-karen-weekly-ignited-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/316938\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech-Tennessee handshake controversy, explained: How Taylor Pannell, Karen Weekly ignited rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas Tech-Tennessee handshake controversy, explained: How Taylor Pannell, Karen Weekly ignited rivalry<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Women’s College World Series is a fierce competition for the biggest honor in college softball, and that competition went to another level on Saturday between Tennessee and Texas Tech.<\/p>\n

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The Volunteers beat the Red Raiders on a walk-off home run to get one step closer to the WCWS final, but the drama only just began with the final play of the game. Following the contest, Texas Tech third baseman Taylor Pannell got into a war of words with Tennessee Karen Weekly, who also happens to be her former coach, over an incident at the handshake line.<\/p>\n

What followed was a case of two different accounts that claim Weekly said something different to Pannell in the postgame tradition. Here’s what happened on Saturday.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0NCAA softball live bracket, schedule, how to watch<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas Tech-Tennessee handshake controversy explained<\/p>\n

Tennessee beat Texas Tech 2-1 in extra innings on Saturday, but the spotlight surrounded\u00a0Texas Tech third baseman Taylor Pannell and Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly.<\/p>\n

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Pannell is in her first season with the Red Raiders after transferring from Tennessee, where she spent the first three seasons of her career with the Volunteers and played in 124 total games. She was one of Tennessee’ best players in 2025, batting .398 with 16 home runs.<\/p>\n

After the loss on Saturday, Pannell claimed that Weekly didn’t say “good game” in the handshake line, instead implying that she shouldn’t have transferred.<\/p>\n

“We were walking through the line just saying ‘good game’ and she said that I made a mistake instead of saying ‘good game,'” Pannell said. “It’s kind of crazy, like, celebrate with your team and I just think it’s funny she’s still thinking about it.”<\/p>\n

Weekly, on the other hand, denies that allegation, claiming that she told Pannell “good game” like she did with every other player. Instead, Weekly called Pannell’s claim a “outright lie.”<\/p>\n

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“If you rewatch at the tape of the handshake line, you\u2019re going to see me go just as fast by her as anybody else,” Weekly said, via the Knoxville News<\/a>. “I didn\u2019t even know where she was in the handshake line\u2026that\u2019s an outright lie. I said ‘good game’ like I said to every other player.”<\/p>\n

ABC’s coverage of the Women’s College World Series on Sunday included this controversy, as the network was able to find footage from the alleged incident. The video doesn’t show exactly what Weekly said to PAnnell, but it appears that Pannell didn’t react any differently after passing Weekly in line.<\/p>\n

However, the video does show Pannell reacting to something after the handshake line ended, as the Red Raiders took a moment to look back before going to their locker room.<\/p>\n

Texas Tech remains in the WCWS, but must defeat UCLA in an elimination game on Sunday evening. If the Red Raiders win, there’s a chance that these teams will play later in the week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Tech-Tennessee handshake controversy, explained: How Taylor Pannell, Karen Weekly ignited rivalry originally appeared on The Sporting News.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[112336,113722,111346,3135,27,29,28,1769],"class_list":["post-316938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-karen-weekly","tag-pannell","tag-taylor-pannell","tag-tennessee","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}