UCLA softball heads to Arizona to battle for second place in Pac-10
Assistant coach Lisa Fernandez high-fives graduating seniors and their friends and family at the beginning of UCLA’s final home game of the season Sunday at Easton Stadium. The Bruins conclude the regular season at Arizona from today to Saturday.
By Min Kang
May 12, 2010 9:54 p.m.
The storylines for the upcoming series couldn’t get any juicier than this.
For one, UCLA and Arizona boast a long-standing rivalry defined by a total of 18 NCAA softball titles, 10 of which belong to the former and eight to the latter.
That’s not to mention that the two teams are currently tied for second place in the Pac-10 standings and stand three games behind defending national champion Washington.
And if that weren’t enough, the three-game tilt marks the regular-season finale for both teams, all the more significant given that the outcome figures to affect the seeding for each team come playoff time.
But the Bruins simply know better than to harp on the sub-plots.
“We try not to focus on any of that, we just call that noise,” senior catcher Kaila Shull said. “It’s just noise, and it’s a distraction because each game should mean the same.”
With so much riding on the series, a zeroed-in UCLA team will be focused on the immediate task at hand. No. 5 UCLA (38-10, 12-6 Pac-10) will square off against No. 3 Arizona (42-9, 12-6) in a desert showdown starting today at Hillenbrand Stadium, the last tune-up before the start of the NCAA Tournament.
Last season, the Wildcats won the first game in a 9-2 rout before the Bruins recovered and took the last two bouts, each won by a margin of one.
Given how well both teams have played this season, the Bruins expect nothing more than another series of fierce competition, a good dress rehearsal for the playoffs.
“Any opponent that we play in the Pac-10 is a good opponent, Arizona being one of the big ones,” Shull said. “It’s definitely going to be a great series, and it will be an opportunity for us to get prepared for any situation that we may have in postseason.”
The Wildcats have two batters hitting above .400, with junior Lauren Schutzler leading all players with a .404 batting average. She is followed closely by fellow junior Brittany Lastrapes who is hitting .401.
With a 31-6 record and a 1.18 earned run average, freshman Kenzie Fowler has blossomed into the ace of Arizona’s pitching staff, taking over for last year’s workhorse Sarah Akamine.
As they stand now, the Bruins, 48 games removed from their season-opener, are a far cry from the team that suffered an embarrassing 3-2 loss to UC Riverside on March 3, perhaps their lowest point in the season.
And according to senior pitcher Megan Langenfeld, the team is all the better off for it.
“We did have a few little road bumps in the beginning of the season, but now it seems like we’re picking up some steam,” she said. “I think the difference (between then and now) is that we’re just clicking as a team in that there’s a ton of communication both offensively and defensively.
“We’re all trying to figure it out as a whole and not do things individually.”
