NCAA championship or bust
By John Michael Earnest
Feb. 2, 2009 10:54 p.m.
Shadows cover Easton Stadium. Practice will probably run late, again. But the women of the UCLA softball team huddle in a ring around the pitcher’s circle.
“What is UCLA softball known for?” third-year coach Kelly Inouye-Perez asks. “What is UCLA softball known for?”
Senior Amanda Kamekona dances into the middle of the circle. “Winning,” she says.
Inouye-Perez asks others to answer. Sophomore pitcher Donna Kerr says, “Pitching.” Junior third baseman Julie Burney says, “Clutch.” Sophomore Samantha Camuso says, “Extraordinary.”
Inouye-Perez puts sophomore Katie Schroeder on the spot: “Name five things.”
The answer, “Lisa Fernandez” gets a laugh, especially from Fernandez, Schroeder’s three-time Olympic gold-medalist assistant coach. The next four are serious. “Tradition. National championships. Winning. Presence.”
Those things characterize the No. 4 Bruin softball team, the most successful program in the college softball world.
But it’s a program that hasn’t produced lately. The last title came five years ago, which for UCLA is ages. The five-year drought is the longest the team’s history.
Last year’s senior class ““ excepting super-senior Ashley Herrera ““ was the first ever to graduate without a ring and without a new banner to adorn Easton’s outfield wall.
Inouye-Perez stepped into enormous shoes when she took the coaching job in 2007. Those shoes had belonged to coach Sue Enquist, the female equivalent of John Wooden. Enquist was responsible for all 11 of UCLA’s softball championships.
“The transition, it was emotional,” Inouye-Perez said.
“We didn’t manage it very well and, in the end, we didn’t play great softball. We weren’t healthy. Did we have the talent? Yes we did. Did we have the same personnel? Yes we did. But our priorities weren’t straight and we failed.”
It took them a year to recover.
The Bruins made the NCAA tournament in 2007, but exited with back-to-back losses in the opening round.
Last season was easier and less emotional. It also didn’t hurt that UCLA brought in an exceptional freshmen class, or that Inouye-Perez now had another year of experience as coach.
The Bruins registered 51 wins and returned to the College World Series. But once the team arrived in Oklahoma City, Okla., the site of the World Series, the Bruins fell to conference rival Arizona State before being eliminated by Florida.
Yet they took the postseason exit in stride.
“Last year, there was just a bunch of new people altogether,” Kamekona said. “It was (about) the team getting to know each other.”
This year should be different. The Bruins return 14 players from last year’s team, with eight positions to fill. The only position without any “experience” is left field, which was vacated by graduating senior Krista Colburn, but will be filled by freshman Andrea Harrison, the Orange County Register Player of the Year in high school last season.
That isn’t to say that this year won’t have its challenges. The Bruins already face adversity. Right fielder Camuso, who was a finalist for the USA Softball Player of the Year award, had shoulder surgery to repair a torn labrum. The team’s other senior aside from Kamekona, catcher Jennifer Schroeder, is injured and rehabilitating separate from the team for violating a team rule.
Yet Inouye-Perez is optimistic about the injuries, which she calls “very unfortunate.”
“In the big picture, it’s a good opportunity to test how resilient we are,” Inouye-Perez said. “We don’t have control over that. It’s something that I focus on everyday: control what you have control over. We don’t prepare for (injuries), but good talent is flexible.”
The Bruins are limber. Sophomore GiOnna DiSalvatore, on the Player of the Year watch list along with pitcher Megan Langenfeld and Kamekona, will platoon with several other players in right field.
Junior Kaila Shull will see more time behind the plate, as will freshman Dani Yudin.
Despite the two key injuries, the Bruins remain confident.
While Inouye-Perez is diplomatic almost to the point of reticence in her expectations for the Bruins ““ her goal is well-grounded, well-rounded players, who focus on family first, then school, then softball ““ her team is a little more vocal.
“We are preparing right now for June,” Burney said.
“We’ve kind of come back this season with unfinished business to get to,” Kamekona said.
“We have the pitching; we have the defense; we have the offense,” Langenfeld said.
“This is our year.”
