Battle-Tested Cats Ready for Tough Regional
If Kentucky softball is going to reach a super regional for the fifth time in six years, the Wildcats will have to navigate a tough path.
Big 10 champion and 12-time Women’s College World Series participant Michigan will be coming to the Lexington Regional. So will Notre Dame, making its 20th straight NCAA Tournament appearance. In their opening game, the Cats will face Horizon League champ Illinois-Chicago.
“I think this is probably going to be one of the toughest regions in the nation this year,” Rachel Lawson said.
Even so, it’s nothing UK isn’t ready for.
“I feel like we’re as prepared as any team in the country,” catcher Jenny Schaper said.
As difficult as the regional might be, it’s no tougher than the schedule UK faced this season. The Cats played the hardest possible schedule in the meat grinder that is the Southeastern Conference, taking on the other eight SEC squads that received national seeds. Finishing with a 31-19 record, UK earned the No. 16 overall seed and the right to host games this weekend at John Cropp Stadium.
That begins for UK on Friday at approximately 2:30 p.m., as the Cats square off with UIC (33-19) after Michigan and Notre Dame do battle at noon. The winner of the double-elimination regional will likely go on to face No. 1 overall seed Oregon.
“We’ve faced probably seven or eight All-Americans just in conference play on the mound,” Schaper said. “So I think just playing the SEC schedule every single weekend, every single pitcher you get is dominant. I know Oregon’s pitching staff is really good and Michigan has really good pitching but I don’t think it’s anything we haven’t seen before.”
UK might be accustomed to the quality of pitching the NCAA Tournament will bring, but the players doing the pitching will in fact be different. That will be a welcome change.
“I think sometimes we play better against teams that we don’t see as often,” Schaper said. “We still have the same amount of scouting on them. Coach Lawson does tons of video, tons of film so I always feel really prepared going into a game, but it is nice to see some fresh faces, go to some different places in the country.”
UK will have to wait until next week to potentially leave Lexington, but the friendly confines of John Cropp Stadium will do just fine for now. The Cats are 18-5 at home this season, with six of those wins coming against fellow national seeds and a couple in dramatic fashion.
“It really hit me hard this year,” Lawson said. “When there were a couple games and they were so tight, I didn’t know how our team was going to respond. That’s one of the things you deal with when you have the uncertainty of a tough schedule. The crowd just got really loud and they got really electric and all of a sudden we started scoring runs.”
This weekend, Lawson is asking for more of the same.
“I think that our fan base doesn’t understand sometimes how important – even in games that we’re expected to win – I think that they don’t understand what a big role they play all the time in what we do,” Lawson said. “I really felt it in those games and I’m just hoping that we can get the same kind of support for this regional.”
