Pac-12 title, NCAA bid on the line for UCLA softball as conference play wraps up

The fight for the Pac-12 will come down to the wire.

With just one weekend left in the regular season, No. 3 UCLA softball (45-3, 19-2 Pac-12) is right in the thick of the battle to determine which team will claim the conference title.

Winning the conference title gives the team an automatic spot in postseason play. Since the Pac-12 does not hold a tournament for the title, the champion is determined by the team with the best record in conference play in the regular season. Whoever falls short has to wait and see if it can get an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament, of which there are a limited number.

Three teams are currently still in contention – UCLA, No. 6 Arizona (40-11, 17-4), and No. 2 Washington (42-7, 17-4). These three top-10 teams all still have a shot at the Pac-12 title, something coach Kelly Inouye-Perez attributes to each team’s success on both sides of the ball.

“It’s the ability to pitch; Washington has pitching, Arizona has pitching,” Inouye-Perez said. “Everybody across the country has good offense … but your ability to have some strength in the circle is what does it for the teams that are most successful, because even the teams that are very offensive will come up with losses.”

Going into last weekend, the Bruins and Wildcats were tied for first place in the standings with one conference loss apiece, both of which came at the hands of unranked opponents.

But the weekend shook up the race.

UCLA fell in its first game against unranked Stanford, though it still managed to salvage the series by winning the next two. Arizona was then swept by Washington at home, catapulting the Huskies into a tie for second place with the Wildcats.

“I definitely think that it’s pretty amazing to see how many upsets there have been in this particular conference,” said junior center fielder Bubba Nickles. “We know going into every conference game that it’ll be a challenge, they’re always after us or we’re always after each other, so I definitely think that’s what definitely makes us a good conference.”

The sweep against a ranked team led to Washington leapfrogging over UCLA into No. 2 in the national rankings, despite the Bruins having swept the Huskies earlier this season in Seattle.

Nevertheless, UCLA now sits alone atop the Pac-12 standings with a 19-2 conference record – and Washington and Arizona are chasing them from two games behind.

“Nobody gets to own it all the time … it’s about how we capitalize in these moments” Inouye-Perez said. “That’s the hard part of our sport.”

This coming weekend will therefore determine the Pac-12 champion, as UCLA comes home to face Arizona and Washington plays Stanford. With the way the rankings stand right now, in order to clinch the conference title, UCLA needs to defeat Arizona twice.

“Obviously it’s going to be a crazy series, just because it’s Arizona in general,” said sophomore shortstop Briana Perez. “We’re just going to go out and have fun and … do our thing and not focus on who we’re playing.”