Freshmen Use The Force to Boost UK Softball on Friday
The Kentucky softball team celebrated Star Wars night on Friday at John Cropp Stadium. And The Force was with Wildcat freshman Mallory Peyton as No. 19 Kentucky topped 12th-ranked South Carolina 7-5 in a game with postseason implications for both teams.
Peyton capped Kentucky’s five-run first inning by hitting the first grand slam of her career, a towering shot over the wall in left field.
Peyton had a goal in mind when she got to the plate, and she did even more than she was initially trying to do.
“My approach was to hit it in the air and score a run,” Peyton said. “Sac fly, gap shot, whatever I could do to get it to the grass, get it far enough where the runner could score. It just went a little farther than it was supposed to.”
Peyton wasn’t sure she had made enough contact to hit the ball out of the park, at least initially.
“No, I thought I popped it straight up,” Peyton said. “I was like ‘great, sac fly, I’m going to score the runner’ and it just kept going.”
Kentucky head coach Rachel Lawson has grown increasingly confident in the freshman from Madisonville, Kentucky, as the season has gone along.
“Mallory has the best mindset for an RBI hitter,” Lawson said. “She loves the big situation. She knows what she wants to do and she’s always going to give a big cut. I feel really good about Mallory when she’s up to bat and I know she always gives us a really great chance.”
Peyton’s home run was her sixth of the season, tied for second on the team. That number becomes even more impressive due to the fact that Peyton has approximately 50 fewer at-bats than the majority of the Wildcat regulars. Peyton has six homers in just 78 at-bats and she embraces her role.
“My job is to hit,” Peyton said. “If you can produce for the team and score runs or get RBI, that’s your only job. That’s what I tried to do the whole game.”
While Peyton was doing damage at the plate, her fellow freshman, Grace Baalman, was taking care of business in the circle. The right-hander from Hardin, Illinois, gave Kentucky five solid innings of work before exiting the game. Later, Baalman re-entered the game to halt a seventh-inning rally by the Gamecocks.
In total, Baalman allowed seven hits and two runs, neither of which were earned. She struck out one and also walked a batter in five and two-thirds innings of work.
Lawson was pleased with Baalman’s effort on Friday.
“I thought Grace, at the very beginning did a nice job,” Lawson said. “She held the course.”
The win was important for the Cats as they position themselves for the postseason.
“It’s important for a couple of reasons,” Lawson said. “There’s a few of us who are in the bottom half of the SEC, trying to make the SEC Tournament, which is crazy considering our RPI, last we checked, was 14. So to be able to beat a quality team like South Carolina, I know that’s really going to help our resume, but also we needed the win just so we can continue to advance and hopefully be in Missouri (for the SEC Tournament) next week.”
And on this night, it was a pair of freshmen who used The Force to help the Cats earn a victory.
