New Offensive Approach Carries UK into Oregon Rematch
The pitching changes didn’t stop.
Rachel Lawson watched as Eastern Kentucky handcuffed Kentucky on April 10 by playing matchups with nearly every hitter. The Colonels switched between their two pitchers nearly a dozen times depending on the Wildcat up to bat, in turn limiting UK to five hits and a single unearned run as the Cats escaped with a 1-0 win.
Never again, Lawson thought to herself.
“Meaning I thought they did a tremendous job,” Lawson said, “but I’ve gotta have a team and I’ve gotta have an offense that no matter pitches are thrown or when we know they’re going to switch an approach, we have to be able to switch that quick.”
Lawson knew it wouldn’t be long before an opponent tested UK in that way again, though maybe not quite to that extent. Things, in her mind, were too complicated for the Cats to adjust quickly enough under such circumstances.
“Well the only way you can make those kind of switches quickly is if you have a simplified approach,” Lawson said. “What we did is we just really got simple and we just worked on, believe it or not, hitting it to the big part of the field.”
It’s that simple. Really.
“It’s finding our pitch and driving it to the big part of the field,” Erin Rethlake said. “It’s literally what we’re thinking about. Driving it to the big part of the field has honestly been the only thing we’ve been talking about. Sitting on our pitch, waiting for it and then doing what we know how to do with it.”
UK was 36 games into the season when Lawson and her coaching staff of Kristine Himes and Molly Belcher made the decision to overhaul the way the Cats hit. Not surprisingly, it didn’t all click immediately. There would be signs of progress – a 9-8 win at Tennessee in which UK blasted six home runs, to name one – but the Cats lost their next three Southeastern Conference series and scored three or fewer runs six times in 10 games.
Then, in a series win over South Carolina crucial to eventually earning a national seed in the NCAA Tournament, the bats came alive. That weekend, UK scored 18 runs, by far its most in a series this season against an SEC opponent.
That was encouraging, but regular-season success wasn’t the goal of the change.
“This actually, I think, caters toward having a team that’s more built for the postseason,” Lawson said. “Not so much the day-to-day grind, but to be able to excel once you’re in the postseason. When you’re in the postseason, stats don’t really matter that much. Nothing matters. It’s just win that at-bat, win the battle and move on.”
UK’s first chance to test its mettle in the postseason – a 3-1 SEC Tournament loss to Arkansas – didn’t go so well, but the Cats didn’t waver in their commitment. They would soon reap the rewards.
“I think that just means that everyone is buying in,” Rachael Metzger said. “We write on our wrists ‘together’ and this has been a complete, 100-percent together process from everyone. From our starters to our bench players, everyone’s in this and if our entire lineup is buying into the process, that means everyone’s committed to our one goal: going to the World Series and doing the best we can do.”
UK took the first step on its journey to the Women’s College World Series over the weekend, exploding for 28 combined runs in a sweep through the Lexington Regional. The Cats have advanced to super regionals before – six times, to be exact – but never quite in that way.
“In the postseason, typically what we do is we dominate on the mound, we play good defense and then we stay in the game long enough to win it,” Lawson said. “But then, after our first game, I started to understand, wow, this team is really getting it done offensively. I didn’t worry about winning. I just wondered how long it was going to take us to get the eight runs.”
It didn’t take more than six innings in any of the three games, as UK won each in run-rule fashion to set up a super-regional rematch with top overall seed Oregon. The Cats will travel to Eugene, Oregon, for a best-of-three series that will begin at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, with ESPN2 televising.
“It’s kind of what you need to do in the postseason,” Lawson said. “Obviously pitchers have tendencies and things like that, but when you’re facing a team like Oregon who’s very deceptive – they have three different pitchers who do a little bit different stuff – you have to be able to flip depending who they put in there.”
Though UK’s approach won’t change depending on which pitcher is in the circle, whichever one Oregon sends in will be pretty good. The Ducks (50-7) tossed three straight shutouts in their regional to lower their NCAA-best earned-run average to a stagger 1.06. Megan Kleist and Miranda Elish carry the heaviest load and have identical ERAs of 0.92, while Maggie Balint has a 1.90 ERA and a record of 7-1.
UK faced all three in last year’s super regional, with Kleist tossing a game-one shutout and Balint and Elish giving up five combined runs as Oregon scored four runs in the seventh inning to complete a 6-5 comeback win.
“Oregon has a great pitching staff. I think that, since we went there last year, we’re kind of familiar with their pitching staff, so I think that makes us all kind of excited,” Brooklin Hinz said. “Oregon has a great environment there. Their fans are probably some of the best in the country, so I think that just makes more excited. We feel more prepared, especially after how we did last weekend. I can’t wait to see what we do.”
As well as UK might be playing offensively, that’s done nothing to change the national perception that Oregon is the heavy favorite heading into the weekend. The Cats don’t mind that one bit.
“It feels like four years that I’ve been here, we’ve never not been the underdog,” Rethlake said. “We have always been the underdog and we play well that way. It’s not about the expectations so to speak, but it’s fun to prove people wrong.”
