Culture and comfort helped turn this ACC hitter into one of the best in college softball

Kat Rodriguez leads the nation in RBI and is trying to power North Carolina to its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2019.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — It’s the bottom of the first inning on a cool and sunny spring evening, and the two batters ahead of Kat Rodriguez in North Carolina’s lineup are aiming to just simply get on base. They’re attempting drag bunts and trying to get their bats on the ball, looking to give themselves a chance to get in scoring position.

Because they know that they’ll have a good chance of crossing home plate after Rodriguez finishes her at-bat. She is trying to send the ball to the moon — or at the very least, deep into the outfield where no fielder has a chance of meeting it with their glove.

Alex Coleman is successful, sending a single up the middle of the infield and then stealing second base, while Lexie Roberts pops out. Rodriguez, to the tune of the iconic reggae fusion track Calabria 2007, walks to the plate, taps her bat against her left heel, takes a hard practice swing and then stares at her bat before settling into her stance. She takes two balls and then a strike, then looks to third base coach Corey Lyon who tells her to “just be patient” and wait on her pitch.

The next ball is just that. Rodriguez connects on the fourth offering she sees from Norfolk State’s Emma Zieg and mashes it, sending the ball over the right-center wall of Williams Field at Anderson Stadium, just out of reach for a hopelessly outstretched right fielder attempting to scale the fence and rob Rodriguez. She jogs around the bases at a steady and humble pace, then jumps into the arms of her teammates at home, who throw her into the air in celebration.

Just like that, North Carolina leads 2-1. The Tar Heels would go on to beat the Spartans handily, 12-1, marking their sixth win in a span of nine victories in 10 games to close out the regular season.

Rodriguez’s dinger was her ninth home run of the season, and the two runs-batted-in she garnered from it increased her NCAA-leading total. Now, with the Tar Heels’ regular season in the books, Rodriguez has 83 RBI to her name on the season — 10 clear of the batter ranking second in the country.

Simply put, no other player in all of Division I college softball is generating runs for her team the way that Rodriguez is for the Tar Heels, and she’s a big reason why UNC is eyeing its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2019 this season.

“I think there’s always room for growth, but I think I’m playing pretty well so far,” Rodriguez says with a laugh. “I’m a lot more relaxed this year when I step up to the plate.”

One could easily make the case that the 5-foot-5 native of Pembroke Pines, Florida, is among the best hitters in college softball this season. In addition to leading the nation in runs-batted-in, she’s ninth in batting average (.464) and seventh in total hits (77). In the Atlantic Coast Conference, she ranks in the top 10 in OPS (1.238), runs scored (56), doubles (15) and total bases (119). Softball America just ranked her as the best second baseman in the country too.

“She loves softball and it just oozes out of her,” second-year UNC coach Megan Smith Lyon tells SB Nation. “She’s super competitive, and she wanted to be a part of something bigger, and be a part of something that we’re building. You know, taking this program to the next level — she was all about it. And we were lucky she picked us. She’s been amazing.”

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Softball fans who have watched Rodriguez closely over the past few seasons might be stunned by the numbers she’s putting up, but they haven’t seen a change on the surface in how she approaches each at-bat. Rodriguez still has an open stance and still often drives the ball to the opposite side of the field, just like she did for one season at Quinnipiac and three at Pittsburgh.

The difference this season for the graduate transfer is where she’s hitting in the lineup and who is batting ahead of her in the order. Those two variables have transformed Rodriguez into a run-producing machine.

At Pitt, for example, Rodriguez batted leadoff. And while she led the Panthers in 2024 in batting average (.336), runs scored (27) and hits (50), she only produced 19 RBI. In fact, in her career before coming to UNC, she only had 61 RBI in 144 games — a mark she cleared this season in just 32 games.

“I have two kids in front of me that get on 24/7. They start the game, and they’re always on. They make my job easy,” Rodriguez tells SB Nation. “Going into my first at-bat, I already have a runner in scoring position… They’re gritty. I love them. They do their job and I try to do mine.”

As a leadoff hitter at Pitt, Rodriguez often felt the burden of starting the fire. At North Carolina where she’s batting third, the right-handed hitter often approaches the batter’s box with at least one of either Roberts or Coleman already on a base.

By not having to shoulder the load of being the one responsible for giving her team’s offense its first jolt of energy, she’s been more at ease when she grips the bat this season. The onus of trying to be the first one on-base isn’t weighing on her. She’s more comfortable and confident. While carrying those qualities to the plate instead of the anxiety that comes with being the leadoff hitter, Rodriguez is swinging more freely and the results have bestowed a major boom to the Tar Heels’ run-production.

“If you look at my swing from previous years, mechanically, it’s the same,” Rodriguez says. “I always talk about not having as much pressure as I did last year. And it’s really just because of them. I go up to the plate already knowing they’ve had success off the pitcher and all I have to do is just drive them in.”

Mitchell Northam / SB Nation

In the calm and easygoing culture of UNC softball, Rodriguez has also ditched pregame superstitions and routines she once clutched onto so tightly. She’s no longer worried about which sock she puts on first or if she wears a particular ribbon in her hair. She just suits up, grabs her bat and swings hard.

Establishing that atmosphere around her teams has been a key ingredient to Lyons’ success as a head coach. A former third baseman for UNC and a native of the Tar Heel state, she piled up wins at Western Carolina, Kansas and Marshall before taking the reins of her alma mater following the retirement of longtime coach Donna Papa two years ago.

“I’m all about — let’s build relationships, let’s get to know players, let’s have them feel comfortable and work with them and inspire them to be free and be themselves and play free,” Lyons says. “And we’re doing that here, and I don’t plan on changing it. That’s how we’re going to approach things here.”

That breezy and laid-back way-of-life for UNC softball this season has unlocked Rodriguez. Formerly a solid ACC-level starter at Pitt, she’s now arguably the conference’s top hitter, and the engine behind a Tar Heels’ offense that set a program record this season for total runs scored.

UNC’s offense is fourth nationally in batting average (.353), first in hits (503), sixth in RBI (355), and ninth in total runs (376).

Lyons’ culture shows itself before, during and after games. The sounds from the Tar Heels’ dugout is full of cheers and chants, grunts and giggles, one-liners and laughs, yells and hell-yeahs. In the stands, the father of one of the players imitates the playing of a trumpet and dances at each home game, and all the players stop to watch. Before their final contest of the regular season in Chapel Hill, Rodriguez did a cartwheel onto the diamond as her team took the field.

“She lets us be us,” Rodriguez says of Lyons. “Obviously, does she have to reel us in? Sometimes, yes, but it’s never in a demeaning way. I think she’s a great person.”

Aside from driving in runs and pregame acrobatics, Rodriguez has played her own part in nurturing the character and mood in Lyons’ program. For Easter, she made each teammate, coach and staff member a basket filled with candy and attached a hand-written note to all of them.

One of them to a staffer read: “Thanks so much for all of your hard work in helping this program function!!! — Kat”

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From afar, Rodriguez and the coaches at North Carolina had always admired each other, though neither side really knew much about the other’s interest.

Rodriguez graduated from Pitt last spring after studying architecture and engineering. But she had a year of eligibility remaining because of the NCAA’s COVID-era rules — where the 2020-21 season didn’t count toward a player’s eligibility clock — and Rodriguez wanted to make a pivot in her studies into a program that Pitt didn’t offer. Ironically, Rodriguez says it was former Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke who gave her a push to pursue a career in athletic administration.

When Rodriguez entered the transfer portal, she was hopeful that the Tar Heels would reach out because much of her Colombian family lives nearby and she thought the program was on the right track. And after experiencing some culture shock of the northeast, she was ready to get back to a warmer climate. The Florida native, who originally committed to FIU out of high school but followed an assistant coach to Quinnipiac after a coaching change, saw snow for the first time during her freshman campaign in Connecticut.

Additionally, UNC offers a Women In Leadership concentration through its Master of Applied Professional Studies program that will aid Rodriguez in her goal of becoming an athletic director. Should she ever succeed UNC’s Bubba Cunningham someday, her first goal she says will be acquiring a new video board for the softball stadium.

But Rodriguez waited and waited and never received a call from the Tar Heels. Luckily, right-handed UNC pitcher Britton Rogers intervened. She’s a family friend of Rodriguez’s from back home in Florida. Rodriguez had let her know, “I’m kind of interested in UNC.”

Soon after, a UNC coach was calling Rodriguez: “We texted you the second you got in the portal.”

The problem leading to a lapse in communication was soon identified. The Tar Heels were perhaps a bit too eager to express their fondness for Rodriguez when she declared her intent to transfer. They were indeed among the first teams to attempt to contact her, except their messages were never received. Unbeknownst to the Tar Heels in that moment, the UNC coach tasked with recruiting Rodriguez misspelled her email address.

Rodriguez can laugh about it now, but yes, a typo nearly prevented her from ever wearing Carolina Blue.

Pretty quickly after making contact with UNC, Rodriguez was meeting with the coaching staff and had an offer in-hand. She entered offseason practices and training with the mindset of leaving everything she had out on the field, but she didn’t envision having a record-breaking season for the Tar Heels.

“Never did I think I would pull out these stats that I have this year, but I think I credit it 100% to the coaches and the girls,” Rodriguez says. “The coaches let you be whoever you are. You’re the driver, they just kind of tweak things here and there. And the girls, they work in front of me so well. I thought I was going to perform well, but not to this level.”

Lyons knew that Rodriguez could help the Tar Heels, but even she didn’t realize how much untapped potential she had.

“She was super athletic. We knew, talent-wise, that she was amazing. She puts the work in. She’s bought in and all in,” Lyons says. “It’s hard to even put a ceiling on what she can do. I mean, I don’t think she’s played her best ball yet. I’m hoping she gets opportunities moving forward, because she’s amazing.”

Rodriguez is hoping to continue to feature for the Colombian national team, something she’s done since she was 15-years-old.

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At the beginning of this season, where Rodriguez was one of 14 newcomers to the Tar Heels’ dugout, they had a goal that could be summed up in one singular word: Regionals.

North Carolina hasn’t made an NCAA Tournament in six years, but they’re well on-track to be included in the field this postseason. Heading into the ACC Tournament next week in Boston, the Tar Heels are 39-14, fifth in the ACC standings, and projected by Softball America to make the 64-team bracket as a No. 3 seed.

“They haven’t taken any game for granted. They haven’t fallen into the trap. They’ve really locked in on our vision and what we’re trying to do,” Lyons says. “We think it’s a really good resume, and we’re going to keep working hard.”

To help the Tar Heels take things one game at a time and to split the season into digestible chunks, Lyons has referred to different portions of this campaign as rounds. The first was the preseason prep and offseason practices. The second was non-conference play. The third was their weekend games in the ACC, and the fourth were those mid-week non-conference clashes. The Tar Heels have finished each stage with winning marks and confidence.

“I think our team has done a fantastic job of staying on-key,” Rodriguez says. “I don’t think vibes have ever been down. We’re full-throttle. We know what our goal is.”

A fifth round looms, and Rodriguez, Lyons and the Tar Heels believe that final bell is far from being rung.