First the UCLA softball team was lucky. Then it was good.
On Friday, luck was on its side in a 5-2 victory over No. 3
Washington. The next day, the No. 2 Bruins (36-5, 8-3 Pac-10)
played perhaps the best softball they’ve played all season,
beating the Huskies 10-0 in six innings.
“After (Friday), I told my team that sometimes I’d
rather be lucky than good,” UCLA coach Sue Enquist said.
“Today, we did everything well. We were swinging the bat well
and played good defense.”
In Friday’s game, Washington (37-7-1, 6-5) got out to a
2-0 lead with a Dena Tyson RBI double in the second inning and a
Jamie Clark bloop RBI single in the top of the fifth.
Down 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth, things looked bleak for
UCLA. The Bruins had been held to one hit by Washington pitcher
Ashley Boek, and the Huskies had just scored a crucial insurance
run.
Monique Mejia led the inning off with an infield hit. Duran then
bunted it right back at Boek, who threw Mejia out at second. Duran
was safe at first.
Natasha Watley followed with a single, putting the tying runs on
base.
Caitlin Benyi stepped up with a pop-fly out to the shortstop,
leaving the inning up to Tairia Mims.
Mims hit an easy fly ball to right field, and another opportune
inning was seemingly ended.
But Washington right fielder Aimee Minor dropped the routine fly
ball.
Both runners scored and Mims ended up on third.
“I always tell the kids, if you stay positive, the game
will pay you back,” Enquist said. “We got a little bit
of payback with that break and we busted it open.”
On the next pitch, Claire Sua hit a two-run homer to give UCLA
the lead.
Minor was given a visor to wear after the home run, and would
wear it the following day as well.
The Bruins would score another run on three consecutive hits by
Stephanie Ramos, Emily Zaplatosch, and Toria Auelua.
All five runs came with two outs and all were unearned.
UCLA pitcher Keira Goerl, who had struggled throughout the first
five innings, then shut the door on Washington, allowing no hits
and only one walk in the final two innings.
But her first five innings were wild and erratic. She had a
stretch of three innings where every single hitter saw at least
four pitches except for one. Some had long at-bats of 8-10
pitches.
When her pitches were in the strike zone, Goerl was untouchable,
allowing only two hits. But she allowed six walks and looked
fatigued near the end of the game.
Goerl was a different pitcher on Saturday. She had command of
the strike zone, allowing only one walk, and baffling hitters
again, giving up only two hits in the shutout. She had a no-hitter
through four innings.
“I had a little more focus (Saturday),” Goerl said.
“I had all of my pitches to work with and they were
swinging,”
The Bruin offense was also improved on Saturday.
They scored in every inning off one of the best pitching staffs
in the country, one that hadn’t allowed more than six runs in
a game all season.
In the bottom of the first, Watley led off with an infield
single. After a sacrifice bunt by Benyi and a flyout by Mims, Sua
hit a single to the left field, scoring Watley.
In the second inning, the Bruins scored on an RBI double in the
right-center field gap by Andrea Duran.
“Those early runs were huge because we started so late
(Friday),” Duran said. “We came right out and got it
done.”
Sua continued her hot hitting in the third inning, when she hit
a deep solo home run out of the stadium, probably landing on Sunset
Boulevard. It was her eleventh home run of the season.
The designated player and first baseman went 4-for-7 on the
weekend with five RBI.
In the fourth, Washington switched pitchers from Tia Bollinger
to Boek.
Duran singled to start the inning off, followed by a walk by
Watley. After a sacrifice bunt by Benyi, Mims hit an RBI single,
scoring Duran. Sua then hit an RBI groundout, giving UCLA a
commanding 5-0 lead.
Goerl would be on cruise control from there. Even when she
allowed two hits in the fifth, she was bailed out by her defense.
With one out, Sua caught a line drive and stepped on first for a
double play, one of two double plays turned by the defense.
The Bruins, already leading 5-0, would nearly end the game in
the fifth via run-rule. With two outs and Zaplatosch and Auelua
both having reached base via singles, Watley hit a deep fly ball
that hit the top of the left field wall, scoring both runners. In
softball, a lead of eight runs after five innings ends the game
because of the run-rule.
In the sixth, Mims and Sua would lead the inning off with
singles. Stephanie Ramos ended the game with a walk-off three-run
homer.
“The thing about this team is they know how to
compete,” Enquist said. “We were really playing
well.”
Every Bruin in the starting lineup on Saturday tallied a hit,
except for Benyi and Mejia. Benyi had two sacrifice bunts in the
game and was hit by a pitch. Mejia also reached first base on a hit
by pitch, and was key in the Bruins’ second double play, a
4-6-3 version in the sixth.
“Hitting is contagious,” Duran said. “If you
see the person in front of you get a hit, you get
motivated.”
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The attendance at Saturday’s game was 1100, the first
sellout at Easton Stadium this season. The formal seating capacity
at Easton is 1050. The previous high was 947 on April 6, against
Arizona.