By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

Kyla Walker was so nervous about following her sister, Kayce Walker, she even considered giving up softball to focus on basketball.

"Kayce was so good at softball, and I was like, `I'm never going to live up to her,''' Kyla said.

If her freshman season at Baylor is any indication, the younger Walker is not only living up to her sister's standards, she's knocking them out of the park.

Despite missing the first 11 games with a stress fracture in her lower back, the 5-foot-2 freshman from Franklin, Texas, is hitting a Big 12-best .445 - well on her way to breaking the program record of .413 shared by Ashley Monceaux and her older sister, Kayce. In earning first-team All-Big 12 and second-team all-region honors, she was even better against conference foes, hitting at a phenomenal .518 clip.

"That shouldn't happen with the pitching we have today," said Baylor coach Glenn Moore, whose second-seeded Lady Bears (43-12) face third-seeded Long Beach State (32-20) at 8 p.m. CDT Friday in the NCAA regional in Eugene, Ore. "But I think it tells you how good this kid is."

Kayce did set the bar high, though She was a four-time All-Big 12 pick (2009-12) who had a .343 career batting average and still ranks among the all-time leaders in hits (230), runs (107), multi-hit games (66) and stolen bases (83).

But associate head coach Mark Lumley still remembers a very young Kyla jumping into the batting cage off the pitching machine "and she hit it as well as anybody. It was incredible."

Both Kayce and former Baylor centerfielder Kathy Shelton urged Moore to get the young prospect committed early, "because she's going to go somewhere." By the fall of her freshman year in high school, when Kayce was going into her senior year at Baylor, Kyla made the decision to follow in her sister's footsteps.

"At first, I was so nervous," Kyla said. "I caught myself trying to be as good as her, comparing myself to her. And then finally, I was like, `You know what, we're different, I'm going to do my own thing.' And it's worked out for me."

While there are at least subtle differences, there are also plenty of similarities. They're both left-handed slap hitters, stand a shade over 5 feet tall, play the outfield and typically bat in one of the top two spots in the lineup.

"Slapping was probably the first thing I ever learned how to do, after walking," Kyla said. "I carried a bat around 24-7. Dad was (Kayce's) coach when we were younger. So, I would go in and hit after everybody else hit."

Kyla started playing elite-level AAU softball with Houston-based Impact Gold in the sixth grade. "I knew playing around Franklin wasn't going to get me anywhere," she said.

But spreading her wings, she was the starting point guard on the Franklin High School basketball team that made it to the state semifinals in 2014 and placed third in the 300-meter hurdles at the region meet that same year.

Some smaller schools and junior colleges even recruited her in basketball, but softball was her ticket to major-college athletics.

"I knew I could do it, because my sophomore year for Impact I was leading off for them," she said. "So, I knew I could compete. And I've been doing this since I was able to walk. I knew I could do it if I just stuck with it."

Expected to be an impact player as a freshman, Kyla was bothered in the fall by a back problem that she had passed off as just soreness. But when she went home over the Christmas break, "it got way worse." When she got back in January, X-rays showed a stress fracture in her lower back, requiring six weeks of rest and rehab. No softball.

"I was freaking out," she said. "I was like, `I have to prove myself all over again.' Kayce had to keep me positive, because I was very negative. I was nervous, because I didn't know how I was going to perform."

Any doubts or concerns she had, though, were quickly put to rest when Kyla had a pinch-hit infield single in her first collegiate at-bat in an 11-1 win over Mississippi Valley State on Feb. 27. And she's been hitting ever since, racking up a Big 12-high 29 hits in 17 league games.

"She's got a little more pop than you think," Moore said. "She's not going to hit balls out of the park, but she's definitely backing them up. When (the outfielders) come in, she can certainly burn them. Every now and then, I'll give her the swing-away (sign), just to make them think, `Hey, she might could hit it.''' That will be the next step, although she tore her labrum while swinging away - instead of slapping - as a high school junior.

"I don't care about home runs, just base hits," she says. "I want to swing away more so I can become even more of a triple threat to people."

Not much has surprised this talented freshman, but Kyla admits she is still in shock over the NCAA selections that sent a Baylor team with a No. 13 RPI ranking on the road to a regional hosted by No. 5 national seed Oregon (44-8). The Ducks face Fordham (39-19) in the other first-round matchup at 10:30 p.m. CDT Friday, with the winners squaring off at 4 p.m. Saturday in the double-elimination tournament.

"I'm still in shock, honestly, that we're here," she said. "But I had never been to Oregon, so I'm just taking it as an experience."

Moore said he gave the team a "little time to gripe and complain about (being snubbed as a regional host), but we've moved on."

"We're going to a beautiful place and playing at a premier facility against great competition, so we're excited about it right now."

The Lady Bears are facing a Long Beach State team that earned an at-large bid after finishing third in the Big West Conference. The 49ers are led by senior third baseman Darian Tautalafau, a first-team all-conference pick who is hitting .347 with 15 homers and 54 RBI.

In the circle, Baylor is expected to go with sophomore Kendall Potts (13-1, 2.06 ERA) opposite Christine Clermont (22-10, 2.11), saving senior ace Heather Stearns (19-6, 1.91) for a potential second-round matchup against Oregon.

"It's a risk, but over the past month or so we've developed a lot of confidence in Potts," Moore said. "I think she really has polished up her game and matches up well against a predominantly right-handed hitting team. We've got a good bullpen and we're going to use it. We're going up there to win."