Rachel Lawson has gotten to know Nikki Sagermann well over the last two years.So well, in fact, that Lawson can usually tell when her sophomore third baseman is primed for a good night.”If she’s comfortable and she’s balanced and she’s seeing the ball, you know you’re going to get a good performance out of her through the entire game,” Lawson said. “So I felt great about her from the get-go.”But through her first two at-bats against Arkansas on Friday night, Sagermann had only a walk and a hard-hit lineout to show for her coach’s belief. Still, when she stepped to the plate to lead off the sixth inning in a 3-3 game, Sagermann was confident.”I was seeing the ball really well and she got behind in the count,” Sagermann said. “So I knew she had to come with something fat and I just jumped on it.”Ahead in the count, Sagermann capitalized, driving a 2-0 offering from Arkansas starter Sydney Wright over the fence in right center and propelling No. 8 UK (37-8, 11-5 Southeastern Conference) to a 4-3 win.”She’s just seeing the ball really well,” Lawson said. “She’s locked in, she’s playing good team softball and it’s coming a lot easier to her right now. Nikki’s a great player for us and that’s what she does well. Hopefully she’ll keep it going.”Sagermann sustained the momentum she built last Sunday, when she hit two home runs in UK’s sweep-clinching win at Ole Miss. The second of her homers came in the 10th inning, starting a seven-run rally.Her three home runs in two games — and back-to-back game winners — are making her slow start to 2014 a distant memory. At the start of SEC play, Sagermann was batting .184 with just one home run. Now, she has nine homers, it batting .270 and has RBI in 11 of her last 15 games.”It could be seeing more pitches because at the beginning of the year it’s been a while since we’ve seen live pitching,” Sagermann said. “But honestly I don’t like thinking of the beginning of the season because obviously they’re not great memories. I like to remember the good ones.”Lawson still remembers the slow start, but she’s glad Sagermann has it going now.”I hope she doesn’t make it a habit over the next two years,” Lawson said, “but what’s important is once SEC play started, she’s done a great job for us. She’s a gamer, she really understands pitchers, she understands the game, she understands how to be a hitter and I think she’s one of the better hitters in the league.”Starting the game similarly to the way Sagermann started her season, UK fell behind Arkansas 3-0 due to some sloppy defense and quiet bats. The Cats, however, capitalized on two Razorback errors to score three runs in the bottom of the fifth. “What I liked is we put ourselves in a hole early with our poor defensive plays, but the team was able to stay focused, stay in the game,” Lawson said.Helping the cause was sophomore Kelsey Nunley, who excelled in an unfamiliar Friday-night bullpen role. Nunley (18-4) replaced Meagan Prince to start the fourth inning, pitching four shutout innings and allowing just one hit.”She was throwing the ball hard,” Lawson said. “She had command of all of her pitches. She looked good and you could tell. Arkansas is a great hitting team. They average seven runs a game. So the fact that she could come in here and shut them out really says a lot about her performance.”Nunley’s performance kept UK in it until the sixth inning, when Sagermann stepped in fairly certain something good was about to happen.”I just can tell when I’m seeing it and when I’m not,” Sagermann said.