UCLA softball sweeps Louisiana-Lafayette in 10-1 mercy-rule victory
By Min Kang
May 30, 2010 5:49 p.m.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article said that UCLA’s Andrea Harrison batted in the first run. The run was batted in by Dani Yudin.
Oklahoma City, here they come.
With a total of nine runs in the fourth and fifth innings combined, the No. 5 UCLA softball team surged past Louisiana-Lafayette 10-1 in the second game of the Los Angeles Super Regional on Sunday. The Bruins swept the Ragin’ Cajuns in the best-of-three series and also clinched a berth into the 2010 Women’s College World Series.
Sophomore right fielder Samantha Camuso highlighted the offensive production with a grand slam in the fifth, while senior Megan Langenfeld took over for junior Donna Kerr in the circle and pitched two and two-thirds innings of one-hit ball to pick up her 11th win of the season.
For the Bruins, this will be the eighth trip to the College World Series in the past 10 seasons. The team’s last title came in 2004 when UCLA defeated Cal 3-1 to take home the team’s 10th NCAA championship.
“It’s a great day to be a Bruin,” said coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, who has yet to win a national championship in her four years at the helm of the program. “I’m very proud of the girls’ fight. They stuck together, it was a team effort and we’re going back to Oklahoma City, so I’m very proud of the program at this point.”
UCLA scored first on an RBI single by sophomore Dani Yudin. The Ragin’ Cajuns responded with a run in the third, but the Bruins recaptured the lead on senior catcher Kaila Shull’s two-run home run in the fourth.
The mercy rule came into effect in the fifth when UCLA put forward a seven-run outburst, tagging Cajun pitcher Brittany Cuevas for 10 runs on 11 hits for the game.
“We were seeing the ball pretty big, so we pulled together and said ‘We’ve got to shorten up,'” Inouye-Perez said. “The little things add up to big things if we can really focus on the process.”
