NCAA softball: UK turns tables on Notre Dame to reach fourth straight Super Regional
Notre Dame hung 12 runs on Kentucky in five innings Saturday. The Fighting Irish couldn’t squeak one across in 14 frames Sunday, allowing Kentucky to advance in the NCAA Division I Softball Tournament.
UK will meet Southeastern Conference-rival Alabama, the tournament’s No. 3 overall seed, in the Super Regional round next weekend. That round — which consists of a best-of-three series — begins May 27 and lasts through May 30. Times and dates for those series were to be announced, but Alabama — with whom UK has split four meetings — will host.
The Wildcats (43-14) shut out the Fighting Irish (33-15) twice Sunday after falling 12-3 in a winner’s bracket matchup Saturday in the Lexington Regional. UK, the tournament’s No. 14 seed, claimed a 7-0 decision before forcing the second game, which it won 4-0. It outhit Notre Dame 19-6 over the two contests after a 12-6 margin in favor of the Fighting Irish on Saturday.
“We were just so bad on Saturday,” UK head coach Rachel Lawson said. “… It was one of those things where you had to throw it out, because if you didn’t it would take weeks to analyze it.”
Not that it won’t be dissected — there’s plenty of time to pick it apart this offseason, Lawson noted — but the Cats were mindful not to let a mercy-rule decision beat them twice; UK eliminated Northwestern 7-2 later on Saturday to regain some momentum and rode it through Sunday evening.
Eight different Wildcats recorded at least one hit. Tatum Spangler led the way on Sunday, going 4-for-6 with three RBI and a run scored.
Autumn Humes threw a complete game in the first Sunday meeting before relieving game two starter Grace Baalman for two outs in the final inning. They gave up one walk between them and combined to throw just 134 pitches on the day; Notre Dame needed 100 more to get through the 14.
Humes on Saturday was touched up for nine runs and seven hits in just two and two-thirds innings of work.
“That wasn’t me on the mound,” Humes said with a laugh. “I don’t know who that was. We really just tried to come back to ourselves, because when we play the game the way we play the game, we’re gonna beat the other team.”
Game 2
Humes was the first to help Baalman’s effort, putting a one-out long ball just over the left-field fence to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead through two innings.
After covering about 40 feet to secure the last Notre Dame out in the top of the fourth, Renee Abernathy scored the second of three UK runs in the bottom after a Miranda Stoddard single into deep left that dropped within inches of the foul line. Spangler drove in the third score on a deep sac fly to make it 4-0.
Leea Hanks led off the fifth with a triple — the first hit for the Fighting Irish — but Baalman needed just five pitches to retire the next three batters. A heady double play turned by the visitors kept another UK threat — its last — at bay in the other half.
Notre Dame in the seventh attempted to rally, but some overly aggressive base-running kept it from mounting a serious bid. Humes relieved Baalman after she issued a four-pitch walk but the starter returned to record the final out. She allowed just one hit on 58 pitches.
“Today definitely meant the most, since if we lost we were done,” Baalman said. “It was good to go out there and see me and Autumn perform at our best.”
Game 1
Two outs followed a walk by Kayla Kowalik to lead off the game, but Coffel scored her on a single to right, igniting a four-run first for the “visiting” Wildcats. Coffel scored on a double by Peyton, who soon after went back to the dugout on a center-field shot by Abernathy, her 11th of the season.
Another early pitching change by the Fighting Irish, who opted for a similar strategy in the first meeting, didn’t immediately have the desired outcome. Alexis Holloway, whom UK tagged for four hits and three runs before Morgan Ryan relieved her with just one out in the first inning Saturday, gave up four hits and two runs in relief of starter Payton Tidd in the second frame.
Holloway settled down from there, surrendering just two hits over the next three frames before a two-out solo shot by Spangler in the top of the sixth.
Second baseman Emmy Blane, a former standout for Christian County High School, ended the contest with a diving takeaway in shallow right.
This story was originally published May 23, 2021 at 5:13 PM.
