UK Softball Counting on Dynamic Offense as Home Season Begins
Kentucky softball has been among the most consistent programs in the country in recent years.
UK has been a fixture in super regionals and even made a trip to the Women’s College World Series in 2014, but Rachel Lawson isn’t one to rest on laurels. For the Wildcats to reach the next level, they would have to up their offensive game.
Twelve games into the 2018 season, that’s exactly what UK is doing.
“The nice thing is we made it such a huge priority to enhance our offense and we’ve done a really good job of that,” Lawson said. “Numerically, we’re significantly better at this point in time in the season this year than we were last year.”
Over three road weekends to open the season, UK is averaging an even seven runs per game and batting .345 as a team, up from four runs per game last year and a team average of .282. In starting the season 9-3, the Cats have pounded 12 home runs, drawn an average of 2.8 walks per game and scored fewer than five runs just twice. UK is also stealing 2.6 bases per game after managing just 1.4 per game in 2017.
The Cats will strut their offensive stuff at home for the first time this season on Thursday, hosting Dayton at 4 p.m. before playing four games on Saturday and Sunday against Ohio and Southeast Missouri State.
“We’re up in stolen bases,” Lawson said. “We’re very fast. We know how to generate offense and then we have a bunch of bigger hitters who are doing a really good job knocking runners in when they’re in scoring position.”
Lawson knows Southeastern Conference play will bring a new level of competition when it begins next weekend, but it’s hard not to be encouraged by the offense so far. Six of seven players with at least 25 at-bats are hitting .325 or better, including three – Bailey Vick, Katie Reed and Erin Rethlake – at .400 or better.
Vick, in particular, has been a revelation. After hitting .321 as a freshman, Vick’s average is an astounding .633. She’s also drawn a team-best six walks, helping set the table for the likes of Abbey Cheek, who has five homers and 16 runs batted in.
“She’s been an incredibly hard worker all year,” Lawson said of Vick. “She puts in her time. She’s very focused. She’s really learned her trade of being able to slap. She can now slap with more power. She’s a much better bunter this year, so she messes up the defense a little bit, creates a lot of mismatches.”
Vick and UK’s improved offense have been of particular importance with a young Wildcat pitching staff finding its feet. Senior Erin Rethlake is back, but the rest of the staff is made up of three first-year pitchers and a returner in Larissa Spellman who threw only 46.1 innings last year. True freshman Grace Baalman (5-1, 1.75 ERA) has been the best of the bunch so far, settling in after she was roughed up to the tune of six runs in her college debut.
“We expected them to have a growing period this time of year and they have,” Lawson said, “but what’s been nice is we’ve seen the emergence of Grace Baalman who’s actually gotten a lot better and gotten a lot of stress innings in, has handled them very well considering how young she is and that she’s never been on this stage before.”
More bumps in the road are to be expected from Baalman and UK’s pitching staff, but Lawson’s history suggests things will be much smoother come April and May. In the meantime, the Cats have the firepower to compensate, not to mention thrill their home fans.
“I think this team is fun because they’re a very blue-collar team and they’re very hard-nosed and they’re tough,” Lawson said. “They know how to fight back. They’re resilient, even when they’re behind earlier in games. In the past, we might not have been able to offensively get back into games, but this team is so dynamic offensively that the score early in the game isn’t really indicative of how the game’s going to finish we’re always in every game and we’re able to come back and score a lot of runs in a short amount of time.”
