It was one of those games for the Kansas University softball team that required a serious heart-to-heart talk between players and coaches afterwards.
For about 30 minutes, to be exact.
After KU (15-14 overall, 0-3 Big 12 Conference) was pounded by No. 6 Texas A&M, 13-1, Saturday at Arrocha Ballpark for its fifth consecutive loss, coach Tracy Bunge whisked her players back to their locker room in Allen Fieldhouse, where it was time to set a few things straight.
“We’ve just had a week where things haven’t gone our way, and we haven’t played well,” Bunge said. “We had played so consistently up until this week that it’s so frustrating to the coaching staff and to the players not to be playing like we played for six weeks. That meeting was about voicing some frustration. It just felt like we got a little deer-in-the-headlights syndrome.
“So, you know, we just had a little interesting bonding session.”
The Jayhawks held off the Aggies (33-2, 4-0) for the first couple of innings thanks to solid defense. Freshman catcher Elle Pottorf gunned down A&M’s Morgan Hebert trying to steal second in the top of the second inning, then sophomore pitcher Kassie Humphreys got out of a jam with runners on second and third.
Trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the third, junior second baseman Jessica Moppin evened the game with an RBI double off the left-field wall.
But then the wheels fell off. A&M junior outfielder Rocky Spencer put the Aggies ahead with an RBI double in the top of the fourth, and the Jayhawks never would answer.
The final punch came from Aggies’ freshman pitcher Amanda Scarborough, who delivered a three-run home run over the left-field wall in the seventh.
The Jayhawks had all kinds of defensive woes, whether scooping ground balls or fielding foul balls. Plus, it didn’t help that they could not consistently hit Scarborough, who improved to 19-0 after a dominating six-inning performance.
In the series finale at noon today, Bunge is sure her players will not see the same struggles.
“It snowballed there in the middle part of the game,” Bunge said. “I can guarantee you that we won’t play like that again tomorrow. This team has too much pride and too much backbone to let that happen two days in a row.”