UK’s Season on the Line Saturday…for Real This Time

Having taken game one, Rachel Lawson was approaching game two of a best-of-three super-regional matchup with Oregon exactly the same.
 
Kentucky would lay it all on the line, treating Friday like it was the last day of the season.
 
It wasn’t, of course, as it was Oregon that had to stave off elimination to force a winner-take-all game three. That means the Wildcats get another shot at a win to clinch their second-ever Women’s College World Series berth on Saturday.
 
The Ducks (51-8) played like the NCAA Tournament’s No. 1 overall seed, sending UK to a 6-1 defeat on Friday in Eugene, Oregon. The No. 16 Cats (35-20) managed just two hits against Oregon’s Miranda Elish, who struck out seven and walked none.
 
“Miranda’s a great pitcher,” said Alex Martens, who had one of UK’s two hits and its lone RBI. “She was pounding the zone pretty hard. I know she was going hard early, getting the first-pitch strike, going outside a lot to our batters and then at the end she started throwing the changeup in, going high. She was just moving it around, mixing it up a lot and that kind of kept us off balance, I think.”
 
That stood in stark contrast to the super-regional opener on Thursday, in which UK exploded for nine runs in a game started by Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year Megan Kleist.
 
“Oregon did a great job responding today,” Lawson said. “I thought their pitcher looked great. She came out pounding the zone and for us it wasn’t really a great game. We didn’t come out. We weren’t on the attack. I think we came out a little defensive, took too many pitches and because of that we kind of had our back to the wall.”
 
The good news is that the Cats are not far removed from that impressive game-one performance or a regional weekend during which UK averaged better than nine runs per game. Whether Oregon throws Elish again on Saturday when the two teams square off at 9 p.m. on ESPN or goes back to Kleist remains to be seen. Regardless, the Cats will be playing like their season is on the line.
 
This time, it will be.