SOUTH BEND, Ind. – For seven straight seasons, the Kentucky softball team has reached the NCAA Tournament.Leading one of just 21 programs nationally with such a streak, UK head coach Rachel Lawson knows it’s a big deal.”It means that we are able to build and that we are a program, not just a team,” Lawson said.The latest edition of the Wildcats will make its tournament debut on Friday, facing Northwestern in the South Bend Regional at 2 p.m. UK. The Cats are coming off their first Women’s College World Series trip ever, but haven’t performed quite up to expectations in entering the NCAA Tournament with a 29-24 record.”We understand that we have fallen short for a lot of reasons and hopefully we have tightened up,” Lawson said.When Lawson says “tightened up,” she’s thinking execution, not the emotional state of her team. She learned long ago from a longtime UK administrator to avoid that kind of tightness at all costs.”We are really fortunate because John Cropp – who our stadium is named after – used to tell me when I first got here that worrying is just praying for something bad to happen,” Lawson said. “That is kind of our mindset all the time.”Instead of thinking about the fact that they have lost seven straight games – the last three in walk-off fashion to No. 8 national seed Tennessee – the Cats are trying to learn the lessons they can from the defeats and focus on what’s next.”Honestly we’re just trying to take the positives out of it and kind of move on from the past and move forward and look at what’s ahead,” senior catcher Griffin Joiner said. “That’s the next pitch and the next game that we play.”But practice came first.UK fell in the first round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament on Wednesday, leaving the Cats ample time to practice for the NCAA Tournament with nothing but themselves in mind.”We have had about six great days of practice and we haven’t had that since January,” Lawson said. “I think the fact that we have been able to focus on those things and the individual techniques that are required so we end up coming through in the end. I think we are going to be OK.””We just had more time to focus on the things that we need to focus on,” Joiner said. “It’s kind of (hard to do that) during the grind of the season. You play every day, so it’s just been good to be able to slow down and focus a little bit.”Lawson expects that extra time to yield results come this weekend, when UK will look to get past Northwestern, host Notre Dame and Ball State and into a Super Regional.”I like the intensity of the practice and the passion,” Lawson said. “The other thing from a tactical standpoint was the defense was a lot better and a lot cleaner and we were making diving catches and attacking balls that we used to sit back on. The postseason is about pitching and defense and then hopefully you luck out and get those timely hits.”A season ago, UK had that recipe down pat in making that WCWS trip, riding the arm of Kelsey Nunley, a good defense behind her and a clutch offense to Oklahoma City. With numerous contributors back from that team, including Nunley and Joiner along with Christian Stokes, Nikki Sagermann and Sylver Samuel, the Cats will be calling on that experience come Friday.”I think the team that has the most experience when you walk on the field, you are not as nervous, you know what to expect and know what pregame is about and media and all those things,” Lawson said. “That certainly gives us an advantage.”An advantage, sure, but no guarantee.The Cats might be part of something bigger than themselves when it comes to the UK program, but they’re just a team when they step on the field.”I think the other thing you understand is that when you are in the postseason: It doesn’t matter what you did the previous season, you have to play well this weekend,” Lawson said. “Having that mindset is what has been able to carry us and we have had that mindset for seven years now.”