With a new conference comes new road trips for Arizona, which is making its way to the University of Kansas for the first time.
The Wildcats have four Big 12 road trips this year, and going into the season three of those were uncharted territory. The only outlier was the trip to ASU.
No. 13 Arizona (33-7, 10-5 Big 12) traveled to Provo, Utah, to face BYU in its first Big 12 away series that wasn’t against its in-state rivals.
Arizona relief pitcher Miranda Stoddard winds up as she faces Oklahoma State in the seventh inning of their Big 12 game, April 4, 2025, at Hillenbrand Stadium.
UA head coach Caitlin Lowe, who is from Tustin, Calif., and played for Arizona and Team USA, likes going to the new conference rivals.
“It's cool, actually, and I had never been to Provo, and talk about just a beautiful setting and a beautiful backdrop to play softball,” Lowe said. “We we were lucky enough to play in 70 degrees the first day and we made it down to 50 the last day, but it was beautiful, our hosts have been very awesome, cordial working with us.”
Arizona faces Kansas (17-17, 4-8) in a three-game series starting Friday afternoon.
The projected highs for Lawrence, Kan., this weekend are 68 degrees Friday, 79 Saturday and 89 Sunday. The highs for Tucson this weekend are supposed to be 100, 99 and 93.
Arizona is 14-1 against the Jayhawks all-time, having first played KU in 1988. Kansas was ranked for three of those games, No. 11 in 1994 and No. 16 in 1998 but UA won all three of those, 8-2 in 1994 and 8-0 (five innings) and 8-3 in 1998.
“I have never been to Kansas either, I don't think anyone on our team has so it's fun to go explore and (director of softball operations) Danny’s (Martinez) doing his best work as far as getting the rundown of cities and and what they look like and and taking care of us,” Lowe said. “But it's been fun and yeah, just excited for all of the new opportunities.”
Arizona has won both its Big 12 road series so far this year and is 7-2 in away games.
UA junior outfielder Dakota Kennedy, who is from Sacramento and played her first two years in the Pac-12, is also excited to see the new places.
Arizona left fielder Dakota Kennedy takes a stab but comes up short on a solo homer by Oklahoma State hitter Claire Timm in the seventh inning of their Big 12 game, April 4, 2025, in Tucson.
“I think it's always nice going somewhere new, maybe experiencing different weather, different fields, things like that and again, I think it's all about adaptability and being able to adjust,” Kennedy said.
Arizona also hasn’t played at Texas Tech, Iowa State or Houston.
Cincinnati, Colorado, Kansas State, TCU and West Virginia are the Big 12 schools that don’t have varsity softball teams.
This year, the UA’s conference road trips are ASU, BYU, Kansas and Houston. According to Google’s measure distance function, that is 2,586 miles.
Last year, its conference road trips were to Oregon State, California, Utah and UCLA, a total distance of 2,870 miles.
Without schools like Cincinnati and TCU, Arizona's Big 12 away schedule isn’t as far.
Lowe said they don’t have to make a lot of connecting flights.
“Kansas no, Salt Lake City's pretty easy to get to Houston's pretty easy to get to,” Lowe said. “I think the tougher ones, like Oklahoma State, we already booked our hotel for next year because they said it's hard to get hotels though (laughs).
“We're learning the ins and outs, but this is actually a pretty favorable away schedule for us this year with obviously one of them being ASU so not that far and we actually don't travel to Orlando (UCF) until Year 3, so yeah."
For their Cincinnati/West Virginia road trip, the UA volleyball team flew to Chicago and then Cincinnati and then drove to West Virginia. Oklahoma State’s softball team was scheduled to get home at 3 a.m. Monday morning after their series finale at Arizona on Sunday afternoon.
Extra bases
– Despite winning their series against then-No. 18 Oklahoma State last week, including one by run rule, Arizona dropped to No. 13 in both major polls.
“Honestly, I don't have an opinion,” Lowe said. “I think that the scores across the country are pretty crazy right now. I think the competition across the country is crazy right now, so it might have absolutely nothing to do with us at the same time and a lot to do with other teams.
Arizona second baseman Logan Cole keeps in touch with the bag to force Oklahoma State runner Megan Bloodworth on a lineout to short double play that sprung the Wildcats from a bases-loaded fifth inning of their Big 12 game, April 4, 2025, in Tucson.
“So, the RPI is very important as far as that goes and seeding goes at the end of the year, but we're worried about figuring out how to play our best softball and really becoming the best team we can possibly be and that's what we're chipping away at right now,” she added. “And I thought we got better this week.”
UA is No. 11 in the NCAA’s latest RPI rankings.
– Kansas narrowly lost its last series at ASU. The Sun Devils took Game 1, 6-1, the Jayhawks won last Saturday 8-0 in six innings and ASU won the rubber match 4-3.
It was Kansas’ first trip to ASU.
