After the graduation of former Bruins Maya Brady and Sharlize Palacios, someone needed to fill the glaring holes created by their departures.

And with a loaded junior class and top-ranked freshman recruits, question marks surrounded Brady and Palacios’ successors.

But as the Bruins enter their second conference series of the season, one junior has blown expectations out the door.

Slashing .422/.509/1.022 and ranking second in the nation with 48 RBIs, utility Jordan Woolery and No. 5 UCLA softball (27-4, 3-0 Big Ten) will join Iowa (18-8, 2-0) for a two-game series this weekend at the Bob Pearl Softball Field in Iowa City, Iowa. The team is entering this weekend’s matchup on a nine-game win streak including a sweep of Purdue in its first Big Ten regular season series.

“This year, she (Jordan) came back and said, I want to go for Player of the Year. I want to be the best player,” said coach Kelly Inouye-Perez. “And a big part of it, her mentality is very locked on. She has a calm confidence about her. She’s a leader. She’s the communicator on the team, as far as messaging out between the coaches and the players. So she’s just taking the leadership role and really owning it.”

Woolery hasn’t led the Bruins alone – junior utility Megan Grant slates in right behind her in home runs and RBIs with 11 and 34, respectively. The junior tandem has led a Bruin offense that ranks sixth in the country in homers and eighth in RBIs per game, illustrating UCLA’s greatest offensive attribute this season – slugging.

The Bruins have already hit 49 home runs this season, with 25 games remaining on their 2025 slate. They hit just 65 through last season’s campaign, with Palacios and Brady combining for 37 of them.

Woolery said her success this season is largely thanks to mindset changes after last year.

“I would say my confidence, and I would say not being so much outcome based,” Woolery said. “I feel like last year I kind of got caught up in just worrying about if I got a hit, my average, stuff like that, and trying to match what I did my freshman year. But this year, I feel like there’s a lot of less expectations I’m putting on myself.”

The Bruins’ fire-powered offense is backed by a defensive unit that ranks second in the nation in fielding percentage and a pitching staff that ranks 15th in ERA. Commanding the circle is pitching trifecta freshman Addisen Fisher, sophomore Kaitlyn Terry and junior Taylor Tinsley.

Terry and Tinsley have combined for a 17-4 record on the season and hold opposing batters to a batting average of less than .200. The latter, a 2024 All-Pac-12 First Team selection, was recognized as the Big Ten Pitcher of the Week on Monday.

“Knowing that I do have somebody younger and older than me, I think just kind of bouncing off of them and knowing that they’re going to come at the right time,” Terry said.

On the other side of the diamond, the Hawkeyes are 0-7 against top-25 opponents and hold a 7-72 run margin against these teams. Despite this, they are on a four-game win streak, including a sweep of Indiana.

Individually, the Hawkeyes are led by infielder tandem Soo-Jin Berry and Jena Young. Both Hawkeyes are hitting over .335 on the season and have combined for 86 total bases. And defensively, ace Jalen Adams has commanded the circle with a 13-2 record and 1.44 ERA.

Adams will most likely battle the hot Bruin bats on Saturday while pitcher Talia Tretton will likely take the circle Sunday.

With a series sweep, the Bruins can advance their current win streak to 11 games.

“We’ve seen a lot of tears and a lot of frustration, and then you see them just finally get to a point where, I call it their Bruin armor,” Inouye-Perez said. “Gets really strong. They’re powerful females. Softball is what they do.”