Softball prepares for battle of pitchers against James Madison in super regional

The Bruins will compete in the round of 16 for the sixth year in a row.

No. 2 seed UCLA softball (49-6, 20-4 Pac-12) will host James Madison (51-8, 20-1 Colonial Athletic Association) – the lone unseeded team still alive – in the super regionals of the NCAA tournament.

“They’re a great team and they’ve had a great year and a great record,” said assistant coach Kirk Walker. “I think they could’ve easily been a seeded team, so I don’t know if they’re a full Cinderella story, but they are definitely a team we have to respect.”

JMU outlasted Saint Francis, DePaul and the host team No. 15 seed Michigan in the Ann Arbor regional.

After beating DePaul in its first game of the regional, JMU went on to battle Michigan three times last weekend. The Wolverines took game one in a 1-0 win, setting up their chance to advance to the super regional. But the Dukes were the last team standing, winning twice to reach their second-ever super regional.

UCLA played four games in the regionals – three of them against Missouri – and had to play two of them on Sunday before advancing.

The Bruins collected just five hits and recorded a single run in their 5-1 loss to the Tigers in the first game Sunday, forcing a winner-take-all elimination game the same day. UCLA turned it around in the next game, though, doubling their hit total from the first game and run-ruling Missouri 13-1 to clinch its spot in the super regional.

Redshirt sophomore utility Aaliyah Jordan said the Bruins know how to get off to a good start by pressing on the other team early and often.

“I think our energy wavered a little bit (during Sunday’s first game) and we just have to sustain our confidence in knowing that we can get the job done,” Jordan said. “We always play a lot better when we score first and we’ve obviously been able to come back from losing before, but to have those insurance runs early shows that we have our pitchers’ backs.”

The super regional matchup will feature two of the top-three finalists for USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year – JMU’s pitcher Megan Good and UCLA’s redshirt junior pitcher Rachel Garcia – as well as pitching staffs with numbers that are nearly identical.

Garcia, the reigning Collegiate Player of the Year, is this year’s Pac-12 Player and Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year awardee with a 23-1 record, 238 strikeouts and a 1.02 ERA. At the plate, she’s hitting .340 with eight home runs and 43 RBIs. Good, the four-time CAA pitcher of the year, is hitting .342 with 16 home runs and 58 RBIs along with a 21-6 record, 200 strikeouts and an ERA of 1.38 in the circle.

Pitchers Odicci Alexander and Good lead the Dukes and CAA in wins this year with 24 and 21, respectively. Alexander earned her second straight conference Player of the Year honor and became the eighth JMU player in a row to win the award. Good is the second player in the CAA to win Pitcher of the Year four times. Pitcher Payton Buresch rounds out the staff and was named to the All-CAA Second Team.

A super regional win would mean a fifth straight Women’s College World Series for UCLA. Freshman left fielder Kelli Godin said the Bruins cannot take the Dukes or any team lightly from here on out, but knows what the Bruins are capable of.

“You never know what game could be your last,” Godin said. “What we’ve learned all season is that really the only team that can beat us is ourselves. If we lose, it’s on us, and we know what we have to do to win.”