Six errors. That's a lot for any team to make but for Kentucky, it marked the most errors made by the Cats in a single game since February 10th, 2012. With luck, the squad will be able to put game 2 out of their minds and get back to the tough mindset that allowed them to shut down the then #9 LSU Tigers last weekend.
Saturday's loss dropped Kentucky into a two way tie for 3rd place in the SEC. That would be bad as it could position the Cats to drop out of the top four, and cost them a bye day in the SEC Tournament in May. This squad is determined to make it to the WCWS again, and as such their entire focus needs to be on how to get Ws. The top eight teams in the country get to host both a regional and a super regional. Last year, all 8 super regional hosts won their games and moved on to OKC.
In short, I cannot state how critical today's game is to the Cats' post season plans. Happily, Kentucky can and should get the win today if they:
- That many errors means the Cats are not communicating with each other. Talk, use morse code, whatever, but Kentucky must minimize the errors. We've only committed 47 errors all season and six came yesterday?
- Remind everyone in the SEC how dangerous our pitching crew is. Kelsey Nunley needs to return to her usual fantastic form tomorrow. 4 strikeouts in Game 1 were great, but the 2 walks? Not so much.
- The Hittin' Kittens? Need to step up on their hittin'! The Cats' offense has fallen from a 3.05 to a 2.91 in just 2 weeks. Good news: Abbey Cheek has been on a tear lately, and was 2/4 yesterday to bring her performance at bat to a .524 in the last 5 games. We need similar production today from Christian Stokes and Nikki Sagermann.
After a week with no TV coverage, the Kittens are back on the air today! First pitch is at noon EDT on ESPNU, with Cara Capuano calling the game. Hope to "see" you at lunch today as we cheer to Cats onto yet another victory!
Until gametime, BBN - GO BIG BLUE!