photo by: AP Photo/Doug Murray

Kansas outfielder Ava Wallace (7) celebrates scoring a run with Kansas head coach Jennifer McFalls during an NCAA softball game against Missouri State on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025 in Boca Raton, Fla.

The Kansas softball team opened the season by losing four of its first five games by a combined seven runs.

“Even though it was painful for our team right out of the gate to not get those wins,” head coach Jennifer McFalls said on Wednesday, later adding that she looks back and feels the Jayhawks could easily have been 5-0, “I thought it was really good for our players to understand that we were not far off.”

Falling short in close finishes hasn’t been nearly as much of an issue for the Jayhawks of late. With the exception of a hard-fought 2-1 loss to Cal on a walk-off on Feb. 15 — a performance McFalls still considered at the time “the best complete game we’ve played all season” and “a great sign moving forward” — those sorts of games have begun to go KU’s way.

Most recently, the Jayhawks outlasted Marshall 4-3 in Sunday’s closer at the Oklahoma Tournament in eight innings after Emma Tatum came aboard on an error and made it all the way around on a bunt single by September Flanagan, foul out by Bailey Amezcua and walk-off fielder’s choice for Campbell Bagshaw.

That capped off a 9-3 stretch for KU (now 10-7 overall) in which the losses came in the Cal game and twice to the No. 1 team in the nation, the host Sooners.

“Any time you play a team like OU, they’re always going to make you better,” McFalls said. “So I love that we faced them heading into this week prior to conference, because we’re seeing really high-level pitching, high-level offensive at-bats.”

The Jayhawks will hope to rise to somewhere near that level of play when they travel to Waco, Texas, to open Big 12 play against Baylor on Friday at 6:30 p.m.

“Now my team is starting to believe, ‘Hey, we’re pretty darn good,'” McFalls said. “So I think it’s a good opening for us in the Big 12, good challenging opponent, I think we match up really well with them, and I think we got a good chance to go down there and take care of business.”

There have been some encouraging displays from KU’s offense in its first month under new hitting coach Justin Lewis, after the Jayhawks got on base at a worse rate than any team in their conference in 2024. For example, the OU event also included a game against East Texas A&M that KU won 23-0, with Ava Wallace clubbing a grand slam in the first inning and a three-run home run in the second.

The three players to have started all 17 games thus far (also the top of KU’s lineup of late), outfielders Presley Limbaugh and Aynslee Linduff and shortstop Hailey Cripe, are also the three leaders in batting average. Linduff is hitting a team-high .415, while Cripe has two home runs and 15 RBIs to her name at this early stage. The freshman Wallace, a bit of a revelation early in the year on the offensive end, is batting .364 and slugging a team-best .545.

As for the Jayhawks’ pitchers, they’re off to a strong start with a team ERA of 2.80. In a departure from last season, as McFalls foretold in the preseason when she suggested it would be a by-committee and matchup-based approach for KU this year, no pitcher has started more than five games.

Junior Lizzy Ludwig has spent 31 1/3 innings in the circle with a 2.68 ERA as the Jayhawks’ most frequently deployed arm, and she, senior Katie Brooks and freshman Kaelee Washington have generally received the bulk of the action compared to two-way senior Olivia Bruno and freshman Kennedy Diggs, who threw five shutout innings in the 23-0 game.

“I think it’s been really exciting to see the upside of Kennedy Diggs and Kaelee Washington in the pitching circle for us,” McFalls said. “I think they bring a lot to the table, really give us some depth with our pitching staff, and that’s really where pitching is now for us, is like I wouldn’t say we necessarily have a No. 1 right now, but being able to get a lot of really good different looks, from especially adding our young players in there, is significant.”

Through nonconference play, the Jayhawks ranked 65th in NCAA RPI as of Thursday, which was ninth out of 11 Big 12 teams. That put them one spot behind Baylor, their opponent for a three-game series this weekend.

Last season, sweeping Baylor, then a top-20 team, for the first time in program history was one of the highlights of KU’s season. This year, the Bears are 10-10, having played a somewhat more rigorous schedule than the Jayhawks in terms of ranked matchups, but also having dropped games such as a 2-1 home loss to Cal Baptist on Sunday.

“I think we have a lot of confidence going against Baylor,” McFalls said. “They’re always going to be good. They’re really well coached. Going and playing at their turf is always going to be a challenge. They draw well. But I think the biggest thing right now is our team’s playing with a lot of confidence.”

Baylor had been led by Turiya Coleman, a familiar face for KU after she previously played at Oklahoma and Houston, who opened the year hitting .519. But she has missed time due to an eye injury. The Bears also feature preseason Softball America first-team All-American Shaylon Govan, a first baseman who is currently batting .378 with four home runs in just 16 games.