NCAA Softball Tournament: UK bound for Alabama with College World Series at stake
Kentucky is playing in an NCAA Softball Tournament super regional for the fourth straight time, and the seventh time in the last eight years.
Only once, however, has it played beyond that round. The Wildcats reached their only College World Series in 2014, after rallying from an 0-1 hole to overcome UCLA in Los Angeles. Those Bruins were ranked as the No. 3 seed in that tournament; Kentucky was the 14th overall seed.
Can history repeat itself seven years later when No. 3 overall seed Alabama hosts the No. 14 Wildcats beginning Friday? Rachel Lawson’s squad sure hopes so, and believes it’s prepared to meet the Crimson Tide on their turf.
“If you’re not used to that environment, it’s something that can be a little crazy, so it has to be a team like ours that’s used to playing there, that’s done it, that’s gonna have a fighting chance,” Lawson said. “Obviously, they’re a great team.”
The road here
Kentucky almost had its streak of super regionals end at three, but battled out of the loser’s bracket at home to almost completely shut down Notre Dame in a doubleheader Sunday. After falling to the Fighting Irish, 12-3, on Saturday, UK held them to six hits and no runs in 14 total innings played the next afternoon.
“If you lose that badly, you can kind of just ignore it and take a breath because you know that’s not really you,” Lawson said. “We’ve had to bounce back all year. One of the reasons why we’re so resilient is the SEC makes you resilient.”
The Southeastern Conference is the deepest in the country. All but one of its 13 softball-playing teams (South Carolina) qualified for the NCAA Tournament, and that was a letdown — all of them made it into the previous three tourneys. Seven of them are among the 16 still playing for a national title.
UK went 13-11 in conference play and dropped its second game in the SEC Tournament to ... Alabama. The teams split four total meetings this season, with Kentucky winning the regular-season showdown in Lexington, handing the Crimson Tide two of their seven losses. Florida was the only other team to beat Alabama in consecutive games this season.
Alabama’s ace
Montana Fouts spent her prep career at East Carter High School, about 100 miles from UK’s John Cropp Stadium. The former MaxPreps National Player of the Year is in her third year at Alabama.
Fouts was a First Team All-SEC selection as a freshman and this year. She’s thrown 303 strikeouts, fourth most in the country, and is 23-3 in the circle this season. UK could barely touch her in its most recent showdown; she struck out 15 batters and gave up just five hits and a walk in a 5-1 complete game en route to Alabama’s SEC Tournament title.
She pitched complete games in both of Alabama’s wins over Clemson, a top-20 team, to take the Tuscaloosa Regional last weekend. She struck out 28 batters, surrendered seven total hits and walked just two Tigers in consecutive shutout wins.
Kentucky sluggers
It doesn’t have an intimidator in the circle like Fouts — few programs do — but UK has some big swingers in the lineup who can make a difference.
Four Wildcats — Erin Coffel (16), Kayla Kowalik (12), Mallory Peyton (12) and Renee Abernathy (11) have combined for 51 of the team’s 76 home runs; Alabama, by contrast, has just 35 dingers, but has given up only 22 to its opponents. UK has hit three against the Crimson Tide this season, all in the same game (a 5-4 win in eight innings), including one off of Fouts, who was pitching with a 4-0 lead in the sixth.
UK as a team hits .328, the ninth-best mark in the country and fourth among teams still playing (Oklahoma, Texas and UCLA rank ahead of the Cats). Alabama bats .316, ninth best in the field.
Notes
▪ Kowalik’s batting average following the regional weekend dipped below .500 for the first time in months after a “so-so” showing; she was 6-for-15 (.400), capping the five-game gauntlet with an 0-for-3 effort. She caught every one of those games, and has seldom rested behind home plate this season.
“One of the things that I’m not pleased with this year is I’ve been in a situation where I’ve felt like I needed to keep Kayla behind the dish this whole time, and I think what it’s done is it’s hurt her legs,” Lawson said of the National Player of the Year finalist. “Any time someone’s legs are wore out it affects their power numbers and it affects their speed. She is the toughest person I know, she’s a gifted athlete, but I have no doubt in my mind the fact that she had to catch so many games back to back to back, it’s affected her offensive numbers.”
▪ Alabama is vying for its 13th berth to the College World Series, which it won in 2012, becoming the first SEC school to do so. Florida, which hosts Georgia in another all-SEC super regional, is the only other league school to win it all; the Gators did it in 2014 and 2015.
▪ The SEC in 2015 sent five teams to the College World Series, matching a record set by the Pac-12 (then the Pac-10) in 1999. It’s guaranteed two, and could send five again this year: Missouri hosts James Madison, Arkansas hosts Arizona and LSU hosts Florida State.
This weekend
Kentucky at Alabama
What: NCAA Softball Tournament best-of-three super regional
When: 1 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday (if necessary)
Where: Tuscaloosa, Ala.
TV: ESPN2 on Friday, ESPN on Saturday, ESPNU on Sunday (if necessary)
Records: No. 14 seed Kentucky 43-14, No. 3 seed Alabama 48-7
Series: Alabama leads 51-10.
Last meeting: Alabama won 5-1 on May 13, 2021, in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals at Tuscaloosa, Ala.
