Squad takes two against strong Huskies
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 15, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 EDWARD LIN/Daily Bruin Catcher Stacey
Nuveman makes it safely to second base in Saturday’s win
over Washington. UCLA 5, Washington 4
UCLA 4, Washington 0
By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Reporter
The schedule had the Bruins and Huskies playing only two games
this weekend, but you can’t blame them if it felt more like
three.
Tying the UCLA softball record for longest-ever NCAA game, the
Bruins prevailed 5-4 in 14 innings on Friday when freshman first
baseman Claire Sua singled in pinch-runner Stephanie Swenson with
the bases loaded and no outs.
“At that point I was just like, “˜OK, let’s
just go out here and finish this,'” said Sua, who had
four hits on Friday. “We’re on top of (Washington
pitcher Tia Bollinger) the whole time, we’ve got bases loaded
and all you can do in that situation is just swing hard and when
you see a strike just go for it. When you’ve got bases
loaded, you don’t really have anything to lose.”
Friday’s four-hour, eight-minute marathon, coupled with
Saturday’s more conventional seven-inning 4-0 victory, should
keep UCLA (42-3 overall, 5-3 in Pac-10) as the top ranked team in
the nation.
The last time the Bruins played a 14-inning game was on May 23,
1997 (a 2-0 loss to Arizona in the College World Series). The only
other 14-inning game in UCLA NCAA play was a 1-0 victory over
Creighton in 1984.
Early on it seemed like the Bruins would demolish the Huskies
(27-16, 3-5), especially after sophomore third baseman Tairia
Mims’ three-run home run to right field in the third inning.
But nothing less than an epic struggle was in order for this
showdown between two of the Pac-10’s best freshman
hurlers.
Washington responded to Mims’ homer with a four-run rally
in the top of the fourth, including a two-run, bases-loaded double
by Husky third baseman Kim DePaul. UCLA shortstop Natasha Watley
tied the game in the bottom of the fourth with an RBI single, and
there was to be no more scoring for another ten innings.
Both Bollinger (24-4) and Bruin pitcher Keira Goerl (16-0) threw
over 200 pitches on the day, as neither team went to the bullpen.
UCLA constantly pestered Bollinger, as she was tagged for 14 hits
and seven walks in 13-plus innings of work.
But twice the Bruins failed to score with the bases loaded and
one out, plagued by base-running blunders and a lapse in offensive
fundamentals and execution which UCLA Head Coach Sue Enquist said
the team made positive strides to fix on Saturday.
Goerl, though, was on top of her game, striking out 14 batters
““ the first time a Bruin struck out double digit batters
since last year’s NCAA title game. Goerl, who threw a full
workout on Thursday before getting the call on Friday because UCLA
ace Amanda Freed required one more day of rest, fixed a problem
with her mechanics in the middle of Friday’s game that
allowed her to dominate in such a way that she didn’t allow a
ball out of the infield from the sixth inning until the 13th.
“I felt … that I didn’t have it for an
inning,” Goerl said. “So I threw some bullpen, and then
I got it back and I felt that I was getting stronger (as the game
went on).”
The extra day of rest seemed to do Freed (17-3) a lot of good.
After jumping ahead 3-0 on junior catcher Stacey Nuveman’s
monster first-inning, three-run home run over the scoreboard in
left field Saturday, Freed went on to allow only two hits while
becoming the second straight Bruin pitcher to strike out double
digit batters by fanning 10 Huskies.
“I think our fundamental execution was very poor,”
Washington Head Coach Teresa Wilson said. “We were horrible
with our bunts, execution was not there, and it cost us.”
