Softball’s roller-coaster weekend ends with pair of shutouts, first lost of season
Sophomore pitcher Holly Azevedo struck out three batters in five innings pitched against UConn on Sunday, allowing only a two-out single in the second inning. Azevedo has a 1.66 ERA on the season. (Ashley Kenney/Daily Bruin)
By Coral Smith
March 3, 2019 11:52 p.m.
It was a weekend of highs and lows.
No. 2 UCLA softball (17-1) came away from the Judi Garman Classic with wins against No. 3 Florida (21-2) and UConn (4-12), but suffered its first loss of the season versus unranked Michigan (9-8).
The Bruins beat the Gators on Friday for the second time in three days, winning by a score of 4-0. All of UCLA’s runs came in the fifth inning, starting with a two-RBI single by junior outfielder Bubba Nickles, followed by an RBI-double from sophomore utility Aaliyah Jordan and an RBI-single from redshirt junior pitcher Rachel Garcia.
Garcia threw a two-hit complete game shutout in the victory, striking out 10.
In Friday’s second game, UCLA was able to get a run across in the first inning on two singles and two fielder’s choices to make it 1-0 against the Wolverines, but the Bruins would be held to just one hit from then on.
Freshman pitcher Megan Faraimo was able to hold the lead until the sixth inning, when she gave up three Michigan runs on two singles and a double. The Bruins were unable to close the gap in the last inning, falling for the first time this season by a 3-1 score.
“I feel like what really got us the most is that we beat ourselves,” Nickles said. “At the end of the day, they hit the ball a little bit better than we did. … They were able to capitalize on having runners in scoring position where we couldn’t.”
The Bruins were scheduled for two games Saturday versus No. 22 Auburn and Loyola Marymount, but heavy rain got in the way, preventing both games from being played. The latter could potentially be made up at a later date.
Sunday’s game started out as a pitcher’s duel, as sophomore Holly Azevedo stepped into the circle for UCLA. She held UConn to just one hit over five innings, striking out three. The offense broke the stalemate in the fifth on a single by Nickles and a fielder’s choice by Garcia to make it 2-0 for the Bruins.
Two more runs would be brought in in the seventh to make it 4-0, first on a single by senior third baseman Brianna Tautalafua that brought in Nickles, and then on a wild pitch that allowed senior utility Zoe Shaw to score.
“I think with a team like that that’s coming out super scrappy … it was just really important to settle down and make sure that everything is in check,” Azevedo said.
Garcia came in for Azevedo in the sixth, getting the last six outs to record the save and finish the shutout. The pitchers combined to record 1-2-3 innings in every frame except for the second, allowing just one Husky to get on base.
Though UCLA was averaging eight runs per game and a .373 batting average coming into the weekend, its offense was largely stifled by their competition. The Bruins scored nine runs over the three games, and hit just .212 in comparison.
The Bruins also struggled with converting hits into runs, leaving 21 runners on base.
“We’d love to run-rule every team that we play, but we also understand that’s not something that’s in our control,” said coach Kelly Inouye-Perez. “We should have been better, we need to tighten it up. At the end of the day we want to learn those lessons now, because I truly believe in this team’s ability to be the last team standing in 2019.”
The Bruins will return home next weekend for the first half of the UCLA/Long Beach State Invitational, starting with a game against Robert Morris on Friday.
