Bruins capture win over Washington

MICHAEL TOBEY Senior Crissy Buck looks for the
call on the base against the Washington offensive in a match
yesterday afternoon. UCLA 5 Washington 3

By Vytas Mazeika
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Oops! She did it again.

Sophomore designated player Claire Sua hit her third homer in
three games during the Stacey Nuveman home run watch, this one a
grand slam in the bottom of sixth to give the top-ranked UCLA
softball team a 5-3 win over No. 8 Washington at Easton Stadium on
Wednesday.

“There was just great drama in the sixth inning,”
UCLA head coach Sue Enquist explained. “I was really pleased
that Stacey just stayed within herself, and then to see Claire
deliver like that, with such decisiveness, was great.”

Nuveman, a senior catcher, has found herself one home run shy of
tying the NCAA career mark of 85 since Friday. But instead of
trying to hit the ball over the fence, she has approached each
plate appearance with patience and delivered a key hit in the sixth
inning.

The Bruins (41-6, 9-3 Pac-10) were down 3-0 entering the bottom
of the sixth. The Huskies (37-14, 6-6) had broken through in the
top of the fifth with a two-out, two-run bases-loaded double from
freshman catcher Kristen Rivera and added an insurance run in the
top of the sixth with a solo homer by freshman third baseman Kathy
Fiske.

Keira Goerl (22-4) avoided any more damage by relying on the
strikeout, as she whiffed 13 Huskies in seven innings.

Washington’s Tia Bollinger, who engaged in a 14-inning,
four-hour, seven minute affair with Goerl last year at Easton, had
avoided the big inning by limiting the Bruin offense to four hits
in the first five innings.

But when UCLA shortstop Natasha Watley and centerfielder Amanda
Freed each singled to lead off the bottom of the sixth, Washington
head coach Teresa Wilson made a move to the bullpen.

“We were just trying to change something up,” said
Bollinger, who relies on the drop ball and has yet to surrender a
home run in 2002. “See if us as a staff could get them out, I
guess.”

The committee approach did not pay off, as freshman Leslie Scott
hit junior first baseball Tairia Mims to load the bases with no
outs. Unable to pitch around Nuveman, Scott (6-5) surrendered a
single to the Bruin slugger, cutting the Husky lead to 3-1.

“I know right know there’s this whole home run feel
in the air, but a base hit will do the same thing,” Nuveman
said.

Wilson then inserted her third pitcher of the inning, freshman
Ashley Boek. After striking out the first batter she faced, the
hard-throwing Boek hung a 1-1 drop ball. Sua drove the ball far
enough that the centerfielder and right fielder quickly gave up
hope of catching the ball.

The result was a grand slam and a 5-3 UCLA lead.

“(Boek) is the type of pitcher where she throws hard and
you don’t really need to swing hard, you just have to get a
good piece of it,” Sua said. “”˜See the ball, hit
the ball’ is what I told to myself.”

Goerl closed out the game in the seventh and the second-guessing
over the pitching carousel began.

“I kind of was surprised because it wasn’t as if
suddenly we were hitting (Bollinger) all over the place,”
Nuveman said. “It looked like a questionable move in the end,
but if they had come in and shut us down, then we would’ve
been praising her for that.”

“As a head coach,” Enquist said, “you’re
a master if it works, and you’re a goat if it does
not.”