photo by: AP Photo/Doug Murray

Kansas outfielder Madi Hays (36) yells and reacts at home plate during an NCAA softball game against Missouri State on Friday, Feb. 7, 2025 in Boca Raton, Fla.

The Kansas softball team’s 20-game road trip to start the 2025 season is at an end, and the Jayhawks are coming home series winners after a 12-2 six-inning victory at Baylor on Sunday afternoon.

Junior second baseman Emma Tatum went 2-for-5 with a home run that tripled KU’s lead in the fourth inning and a bases-clearing double that put the Jayhawks in run-rule territory in the sixth. Pitchers Lizzy Ludwig, Katie Brooks and Kennedy Diggs combined to allow two runs while stranding 11 Bears on base, with Brooks escaping a bases-loaded jam with back-to-back strikeouts in the third inning.

Shortstop Hailey Cripe and right fielder Aynslee Linduff also posted two-hit games for KU (12-8), which claimed the rubber match of the series at Getterman Stadium — against a team with which it had been about even in NCAA RPI — after splitting a pair of 3-2 results between Friday and Saturday.

The Jayhawks came extremely close to sweeping Baylor. On Friday they had gone ahead 2-1 when an error at third base following a single by September Flanagan allowed Kadence Stafford and Madi Hays to score. They maintained that lead entering the bottom of the seventh inning, but Brooks, having already pitched six frames, gave up a leadoff home run to Baylor’s preseason All-American first baseman Shaylon Govan.

KU went down in order in the eighth and ninth innings, and in the bottom of the ninth, Kaelee Washington couldn’t get the third out she needed against BU designated player Leah Cran, who brought home Govan for the walk-off.

The Jayhawks redeemed themselves in another hotly contested matchup on Saturday. In that game, Olivia Bruno was the engine of KU’s effort. She pitched 6 2/3 innings in the circle while giving up two runs, and also hit a two-run home run in the first inning that had given the Jayhawks an early advantage, before the speedy UTSA transfer Hays scored on a wild pitch in the second.

Down 3-1, Baylor came extremely close to another seventh-inning comeback, with Bruno issuing three walks (one intentional to Govan) while she got the first two outs of the inning. Lizzy Ludwig entered in relief and walked Karynton Dawson to concede one run, but she induced a groundout by Abi Flores that sealed the victory.

“We didn’t get the hits we were looking for, but we jumped on it early, which was exactly what we challenged them to do,” McFalls said in a press release on Saturday. “It was a team effort, and everyone stepped up when we needed them.”

KU will now take a brief hiatus from Big 12 play as it debuts at Arrocha Ballpark. The Jayhawks will host Wichita State on Wednesday at 5 p.m. before welcoming Omaha for a pair of games on Friday and Saturday.