Oct. 2, 2012

LAWRENCE, Kan. - Five games into the Kansas softball fall exhibition season, head coach Megan Smith is pleased with the team's progress, but has plenty of objectives lined up for Wednesday's game against Baker at 6:00 p.m. in Arrocha Ballpark.

"We're working on our progression," Smith said. "We want to see them grow from game to game in terms of pitching and offense. I think our defense has been really solid and we hope that will continue into tomorrow. This week we're working on our base running, we had a few miscues this weekend and we'd like to tighten that up before we play Baker. We'd also like to see our hitters make quicker adjustments as well as our pitchers continue to progress."

Kansas moved to 5-0 in the fall season after sweeping through its home tournament with four run-rule victories. In fact, all five wins during exhibition play were of the shortened variety. Powerful at the plate, the Jayhawks have outscored opponents 51-1 heading into this week's meeting with Baker.

"We've got some newcomers that look really comfortable and they've looked that way since they set foot on campus. We're really excited about what they're doing," Smith said. "Obviously, we have some strong offensive players returning, too. This week we're working on more specialty offensive situations, hit and runs and short game work, we just want to see them improve each game."

Senior Maggie Hull and freshman Alex Hugo teamed up to show the team's offensive power on the rookie and veteran spectrum on Sunday, with each drilling grand slams to left field in KU's 13-1 win against Seminole State College.

Although base running is on the week's agenda for areas of improvement, the Jayhawks have proven that they if they do make a mistake on the base paths, they'll do it at breakneck speed.

"We are the most athletic we've ever been since I've been here," Smith said. "We have speed from players that you wouldn't even expect to have speed - (freshman) Chaley Brickey has speed, Alex Hugo has speed. It's good to add those hitters that add speed to complement our slappers."