photo by: AP Photo/Colin E. Braley

Kansas' Hailey Cripe during an NCAA college softball game on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo.

Back in her playing days — as a four-year starter for Texas A&M in the 1990s, and later on the Olympic softball team — Jennifer McFalls was a shortstop.

So she understands the importance of leadership in the middle infield.

“A shortstop is kind of like the quarterback of your team,” said McFalls, the sixth-year Kansas softball coach, in a recent press conference. “It’s an extension of me out there. That’s the way I feel. It’s the way I played, I was a shortstop so I always felt like you have to have your greatest leaders in those positions.”

Hailey Cripe, though just a sophomore, is already one of them, she said.

Cripe, a native of Royal Center, Indiana, and a state champion in her time at Pioneer High School, is set to take over as the starting shortstop for KU this season, replacing a recently graduated three-year starter at that spot in Haleigh Harper. McFalls said that while past players have excelled in their roles — the Jayhawks are also replacing longtime center fielder Shayna Espy with Angela Price — it’s her coaching staff’s job to recruit better than what they currently have.

By elevating Cripe, the Jayhawks are getting even more of a player with “great work ethic, just a super blue-collar kid that brings a lot of talent, a lot of leadership to our group.”

By the end of her freshman year, she was starting at second base. She finished with 28 starts in her 36 games played (in the 52-game campaign). While she hit four home runs and drove in 18 runs in her 81 at-bats — including two with a walk-off double in a memorable senior day win — her average was just .198.

Few Jayhawks ended up with good showings in that particular stat as KU had the worst team batting average in the Big 12 Conference at .243 and, for that matter, worst on-base percentage at .323.

“We quite honestly just left too many runners in scoring position, didn’t get the RBI production that we needed,” McFalls said. “So that’s been a major focus for us this fall, is just quality at-bats.”

She said that associate head coach Rich Wieligman “has done a tremendous job just kind of digging in and trying to reflect back on last season” in that domain. The staff is stressing the importance of earning quality at-bats and hard-hit ground balls, as McFalls also noted that a change in the compression of the softball means it won’t fly as far this season.

“Can’t live and die by the home-run ball, and we’re not necessarily built to be that kind of team anyway,” she said.

Cripe will be one of several players charged with leading the way for an offensive resurgence.

According to her coach, she has the chance in her career to do something that only one player — Shelby Gayre in the shortened 2020 season — has done under McFalls: earn All-American honors at Kansas.

“She’s just incredibly talented and she’s got the right mentality, right mindset, and she’s just a workhorse,” McFalls said.

KU opens its season Friday against No. 15 Oregon in Clearwater, Florida.