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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SOFTBALL
Season starts with five-game tournament
SARA KRUGER
skruger@kansan.com
Kansas softball coach Megan Smith has high expectations coming into the spring softball season. Last season, the team broke the all-time single-season record with 60 home runs.
The Jayhawks are heading to Hammond, La., to open the spring schedule for their first of five games at the Southeastern Lion Classic. The Jayhawks will face Tennessee-Martin Friday at 12:30 p.m. along with Troy, Jackson State, Southeastern Louisiana State and Northern Colorado throughout the weekend.
Opening the season with a weekend of five games is just what the team needs to jump-start the season, said junior outfielder Rosie Hull.
"Pre-conference is about winning games and not having played since May," she said. "It gets us ready for conference play."
Losing junior Alex Jones to a torn ACL after 106 consecutive games in two seasons as the starting center
fielder gives
others a
chance to
step up this
season,
Smith said.
"Last year we were a couple of games away from making it to the NCAA tournament," she said. "This year the team goal is pretty clear. We are aiming to make regionals."
The team has three starters returning in the infield with two newcomers, freshman Chanin Naudin, VYPE Magazine's 2011 North Texas/Collin County Softball MVP, and Maddie Stein.
"I think Chanin is the type of
"She has so much passion.Maddie is a utility player, she can play three positions and that is great because her batting is phenomenal."
MAGGIE HULL
Junior outfielder
player who win.
outwork anybody on the field," said junior outfielder Maggie Hull. "She has so much passion. Maddie is a utility player, she can play three positions and that is great because her batting is phenomenal."
Junior Mariah Montgomery and sophomore Ashley Newman
switched off at shortstop and second base last season, combining for 200 putouts and assists and 12 double plays. Montgomery and Newman will continue to help the Jayhawks' defense in the infield this season.
"Those two have so much chemistry in the middle field," Rosie said.
Three new Jayhawks will step up to the mound this season. Emily Stokes, a freshman from Hamilton City, Calif., Alicia Pille, a freshman from Royse City, Texas, and Morgan Druhan, a junior transfer from the University of South Alabama. Smith said Druhan is experienced, poised and confident on the mound.
"Alicia has looked really good in practice and Emily has shown improvement in practice as well," Smith said.
Redshirt senior Liz Kocon addresses the media at Softball Media Day. The team travels to Hammond,La., for the Southeastern Lion Classic. It is the first tournament of the spring softball season. Last season the team finished just shy of regional play and hope to play through a challenging Big 12 season.
CHRIS BRONSON/KANSAN
Rosie said the three new players add depth.
"Having five pitchers who we can go to and be completely confident in them, that's a really good feeling," she said.
Pille said the pitchers are going to work together to get through the games this season.
The outfield has four returning players with dominate upperclassmen. Maggie made the AllBig 12 second team last season and had a .346 batting average with 49 RBIs and 56 hits, and her sister Rosie made Academic AllBig 12 First Team and won the team's academic award with a 4.0 GPA. Senior outfielder Liz Koon had 14 home runs last season and was Academic AllBig 12 First Team, Team Captain.
"Liz is more prepared than anyone, she knows what it takes to get ready," Smith said. "She has been through it and we feel really good about how she will perform this season."
"It's about keeping batters off balance and between the five of us, I think we are going to do really well," she said.
The mild winter has given the
team the opportunity to practice outside and provide the pitchers with a live-game setting. Maggie said it allows the infield to adjust for outside games because a softball reacts differently on turf than it does on dirt and gives the team an advantage that teams in the north might not have. Rosie said the practice outside has increased the amount of throwing and has helped the outfielders.
"We have a huge spot to fill, but we have two girls who are good enough to play there. Overall we have a lot of different tools in the
outfield that we can go with and that's really exciting," she said.
Due to conference realignment, the Jayhawks will play each Big 12 team three times. Smith has encouraged the team to go into every game without knowing their opponents.
"We want to focus on ourselves," Smith said. "We don't need to have any preconceived notions of any team. If we focus on what we need to do we will be successful."
Edited by Max Rothman
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