Time is running out on the Kansas University softball team’s regular season. Senior pitcher Alicia Pille has the X’s to prove it.

Just last week, realizing the Jayhawks are getting closer by the minute to a second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance, the KU ace from Royse City, Texas, grabbed a marker, applied it to the mirror in her room and wrote out each of the remaining series on KU’s schedule.

“Oh my gosh,” she thought. “I only have 11 games — 11 guaranteed games — left.”

That number now stands at six, with No. 17 Baylor coming to Arrocha Ballpark at Rock Chalk Park for the Jayhawks’ final home series this weekend.

Game 1 starts at 5 p.m. today.

Kansas senior pitcher Alicia Pille delivers the ball during Kansas' game against Texas Saturday afternoon at Arrocha Ballpark.

Kansas infielder Maddie Stein throws out an Indiana State runner during the second inning on Tuesday, March 17, 2015 at Arrocha Ballpark.

Kansas senior Chanin Naudin makes a throw to first for an out during Kansas' game against Georgia State Saturday afternoon at Arrocha Ballpark.

Every time Kansas (35-10) plays, Pille marks off another X to remind herself: “Take advantage of this. It’s almost over.”

She and fellow seniors Maddie Stein and Chanin Naudin certainly have made the most of their four years at Kansas. They comprised the first recruiting class of now-fifth-year KU coach Megan Smith.

“When those three girls walked on to campus,” Smith said, “our program changed.”

Like Pille, third baseman Naudin and first baseman Stein played immediately as freshmen.

“What a strong group to come in,” Smith said, “and lead that charge of turning our program around.”

In 2014, the trio and their teammates led KU to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in eight seasons, and the Jayhawks finished 34-23. They’ve already surpassed that win total this season and even earned a top-25 ranking for the first time since 2011.

Naudin, of Princeton, Texas, found it fitting their final spring in Lawrence has included playing at a “beautiful” brand-new facility.

“It’s been a great year,” she said. “As a freshman, I never would’ve pictured this.”

Pille (21-4, 2.84 ERA, 165 Ks, 1622?3 innings pitched this season), Stein (.372 batting average, 15 doubles, 40 RBIs) and Naudin (.277 average, 30 runs, .947 fielding percentage, 78 assists) lead on and off the field, according to fellow senior Beth Wilson, a junior-college transfer in her second season at Kansas.

“No one could be watching,” Wilson shared, “and they’re still working really hard and doing what they’re supposed to be doing to get better — not for themselves, but also for the team.”

Pille said she chose KU because she wanted to be on the ground floor of starting something special.

“To see how the program has grown makes me so happy,” she said, smiling. “I can’t even put it into words.”

Stein, from Oklahoma City, said the ownership the three seniors feel with everything KU has accomplished lately continues to drive them.

“More than anything, we know where the program’s been, where it’s going and where we eventually want it to end up,” Stein said, adding they hope to pass that knowledge and leadership skills on to their talented younger teammates.

“That way what we’ve all envisioned can still be carried through.”