Pretend you’re in the batter’s box. There are two runners on base, but there are two outs, it’s the bottom of the seventh and final inning, and your team trails by three runs.Not only is the game at stake with your one at-bat, the series and potentially the stamp on the best start in program history hangs in the balance.You’re on a team that has historically struggled but has found budding success the past two seasons. It’s contended, made the NCAA Tournament twice and is on the brink of becoming one of the nation’s elite teams, yet it always seems to lack the kind of series win over a nationally ranked conference opponent like they’re one you’re going up against. There’s no telling exactly what went through the mind of Kentucky softball senior catcher Megan Yocke on Sunday afternoon when she stepped up to the plate with that exact scenario against then-No. 7 Tennessee, but chances are some of that raced through her mind.”For most at-bats I get nervous, but I’m able to get past that by focusing,” Yocke said. “I’m sure I was nervous knowing it was the seventh inning with two outs.”A loss would have by no means tarnished a spectacular start to the 2011 season, but a win would not only legitimize Kentucky’s now 16-4 start, it would cement UK as a bona fide contender this year, a program that is ready to make the next step from a middle-of-the-pack Southeastern Conference team to one that can truly contend for an SEC crown.Yocke came through in the clutch with perhaps the biggest at-bat of her career. With 1,063 fans watching in the first home series of the year, Yocke smacked a three-run bomb over the fence in left-center field to tie the game at 4-4 and force extra innings.”I wasn’t thinking home run,” Yocke said of the at-bat.UK would later win the game when Tennessee opted to intentionally walk Yocke to get to Kara Dill. The sophomore shortstop made the Volunteers pay by singling in freshman Ellen Weaver, the game-winning run.”Since I’ve been here, we’ve won series, but we haven’t won series against schools like Tennessee or a team that’s been ranked so high,” head coach Rachel Lawson said. “For us to be able to put things together and win a series and not just a game means that we’re improving the program.”Kentucky could very well go on to lose its midweek games at Arkansas on Wednesday. The weekend series could have just been an anomaly or an off weekend for Tennessee, and maybe the Cats will return to the middle of the pack in the SEC.Or just maybe it was the start of a spring-long league race that UK softball has never experienced before. “Everyone in our conference is going to be top 25 or at least top 50, so we’ve got to be able to knock off teams like Tennessee and Alabama to really help build our confidence and keep it going, otherwise it’s going to be a long, hard season playing good-caliber teams,” Yocke said.If the Tennessee series does nothing else, it at least brought some national attention to the job Lawson continues to do at UK. Despite losing All-American Molly Johnson to graduation, Kentucky is now ranked in both major polls (No. 21 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 and No. 24 in the NFCA Division I Top 25 Poll). Yocke was also tabbed USA Softball Player of the Week by the Amateur Softball Association of America for her heroics over the weekend.”It makes us feel good,” Lawson said. “That’s been one of our goals since September was to be able to win big games on Sunday and win series. The fact that we’ve worked so hard for so long, to actually see it come to fruition in our first (conference) series gives the players a sense of satisfaction that what they’re working on is working. It gives them a boost to keep pushing forward.”The fact that Kentucky owns the series win over Tennessee, has lost just four games on the year and is just now cracking the major polls could be viewed as an indication of the lack of respect the program has received over the years.Even with its two NCAA Tournament appearances the last two seasons, UK bore the image of an average but not-so-threatening team. Perhaps coaches in the conference thought, “Oh, Kentucky, that’s a nice team.” But did those coaches ever really take the Cats seriously as a title contender?Lawson doesn’t try to think about those things, she’s not hiding her good feelings about this ballclub. Just making the SEC Tournament the past two years – only the top eight teams in the league make the tournament – made her entertain thoughts of competing for the league crown. Now that her team has proven it can take a series form an elite team, she’s trying to win it. (Of course, it doesn’t help that the top three teams in the ESPN.com/USA Softball Collegiate Top 25 are SEC teams.)”More than anything, it just makes us realize that we can compete against the best and we can beat them,” Lawson said.Kentucky’s meteoric rise this year has come from all different positions, years of experience and players.Yocke, as the leader of the team, is batting .390 in Johnson’s departed spot at leadoff. Pitching aces Chanda Bell and Rachel Lawson continue to do what they’ve done in their previous two years at Kentucky – limit runs and win ballgames. Dill, faced with filling the gigantic shoes of an All-American, is third on the team in batting average with a .389 clip. Junior Brittany Cervantes is not only hitting home runs (six), she’s also hitting for average (.359). And freshman pitchers Weaver and Lauren Cumbess are a combined 6-1. Everywhere Lawson looks, somebody is coming through in the clutch.”We have a team full of little superheroes,” Lawson said. “Somebody new steps up every time. That’s kind of how we’re made and how we practice. … We’ve never had a complete team before. We’ve certainly had great moments and we’ve had great players, but to be able to have one through 20 is pretty special for us.”Of course, all these positive feelings could quickly be erased by a letdown at Arkansas on Wednesday and this weekend’s series at LSU. Lawson said she’s made her team realize that being a real contender isn’t built off just one series.”My team is fully aware that any team in the SEC can beat you on any given day,” Lawson said. “As much as the Tennessee series was great, we understand that if we don’t take care of Arkansas that we haven’t really improved our standing in the conference.”