This post was updated March 5 at 8:37 p.m.

Janelle Meoño slid headfirst into third on opening day. It’s part of what she says she does best: get on base and use her speed to score.

However, a hand injury picked up on the slide promptly put the redshirt senior out of the lineup until last weekend.

In her return, the Bruin outfielder has hit at a .500 clip, and she proved to her team once again Sunday why she belongs at the top of the order, launching a comeback sparked by her quick feet and approach on the base paths.

“She did the Janelle 101,” said coach Kelly Inouye-Perez. “She was able to clutch up and score a run just by moving 60 feet at a time.”

With the offense firing on all cylinders in its final three games before Pac-12 play, No. 19 UCLA softball (11-6) defeated both Weber State (9-11) and DePaul (4-15) on Saturday in run-rule victories by scores of 8-0 and 9-1, respectively. On Sunday, UCLA extended its winning streak, upending San Jose State (6-8) in a 5-1 comeback win led by Meoño’s crafty base running.

After four innings of one-run ball from sophomore pitcher Taylor Tinsley and an inning of relief from freshman pitcher Kaitlyn Terry against the Spartans, the Bruins needed to muster up offense down a run.

Meoño led off the fifth with an infield single – her second of the game – and subsequently stole second.

That was the setup the Bruins needed to tie the game. Two flyouts from redshirt senior shortstop Maya Brady and sophomore utility Megan Grant allowed the speedster to advance on both plays and score.

“That’s honestly the best part of the game – get them on, get them over, get them in,” Meoño said. “Those are probably the best runs because you do it so quickly, but it’s so efficient at the same time.”

Another scoreless inning of relief from Terry kept the game tied as Sharlize Palacios came up to the plate in the sixth.

On the first pitch she saw, the redshirt senior catcher deposited the ball over the fence for her fifth home run of the season, giving UCLA the lead. And the Bruins did not stop there, as senior utility Thessa Malau’ulu knocked in a run with a pinch-hit single and Brady laid her final stamp on the contest with a two-RBI double.

Terry put away the Spartans with a 1-2-3 inning in the seventh, securing the victory and putting a close to her best weekend as a Bruin.

On Saturday, Terry’s 12 punchouts against Weber State tied the school record for most by a freshman hurler in the past 15 years, putting her name in the record books alongside likely future UCLA Athletic Hall of Famers Megan Faraimo and Rachel Garcia.

It was behind her pitching performances that the Bruins’ lineup secured its run-rule victories. Against the Wildcats, Inouye-Perez turned to pinch hitters sophomore infielder Ramsey Suarez and junior utility Taylor Stephens to provide some insurance runs in the fifth.

Suarez recorded her first hit of the season, scoring a pair of base runners, and in the next at-bat, Stephens launched her first home run of the season, scoring herself and Suarez to make it 7-0.

“Before every game, we (Stephens and Suarez) pray and we just say, ‘We’re not going to make the moment bigger than ourselves,’” Stephens said. “‘We are going to play as a team. We’re going to do whatever we can to help our team get the win.’”

In the nightcap against DePaul, the trio of Palacios, Grant and graduate student outfielder Jadelyn Allchin hit home runs. Sophomore infielder Jordan Woolery, Stephens and Brady also contributed with a collective four RBIs against the Blue Demons.

With tournaments now behind them, Inouye-Perez said the long weekends have allowed the team to discover who they are as they move forward into the next phase of their season – conference play.

“We’ve learned how to fight,” Inouye-Perez said. “We’ve had different lineups, different people have gone down, different people have stepped up, and we’ve learned that good talent is flexible and we’ve exercised that.”