Coming into the season-opening Campbell/Cartier Tournament this
weekend in San Diego, UCLA softball coach Sue Enquist was most
concerned with the defensive performance of her team.
What Enquist got was an offensive explosion.
The Bruins (5-0), who did not score more than nine runs in a
game all season long last year, reached the nine-run mark three
times and pounded out double-digit hits in all five games that they
played in, each one of them a victory.
“This production this weekend was definitely a reflection
of how hard these kids have worked and it is also a testament of
our depth,” Enquist said. “It was a complete team
effort.”
The Bruins invoked the five-inning mercy rule on three of their
opponents over the weekend, defeating Sacramento State 22-3 on
Thursday, Cal Poly 13-0 later on Thursday, and Massachusetts 8-0 on
Saturday. The Bruins also defeated UC Santa Barbara 9-3 on Friday
and squeaked out a 2-1 win over San Diego State in a game where the
Bruins could not convert their 10 hits into more runs.
“They’ve proven to themselves that they’re a
talented ball-club,” Enquist said. “At the same time I
think they also understand that they’re not invinicible
either. It didn’t come as easily to us (against
SDSU).”
UCLA received solid play from all of its regular hitters, with
standout offensive performances from senior pitcher/first baseman
Lisa Dodd, senior second-baseman Caitlin Benyi, junior shortstop
Jodie Legaspi and senior third baseman Andrea Duran. Duran,
Legaspi, and Dodd each had eight RBIs while Benyi had two home runs
and seven RBIs.
In addition to contributing with the bat, Dodd also won two
games pitching, and allowed five earned runs in 15 innings pitched
over a span of three games.
The other three wins were recorded by sophomore pitcher Anjelica
Selden, who was totally dominant in her twelve innings of work.
Selden, who took the summer off from pitching to rehabilitate
injuries to her pitching arm, allowed just three hits (one in each
game), no runs, and struck out 34 hitters in two starts and one
relief appearance in the game against San Diego State. Most
importantly, Selden said that she was pain-free after the
tournament.
“(The arm) is perfectly fine,” Selden said.
“It was really exciting to start playing again and pitching
in that competitive environment.”
The San Diego State game was a microcosm of how Enquist is
planning to use Dodd and Selden this year.
“As a pitcher you want to get the whole thing done, but
I’m gonna tag-team with both of them,” Enquist said.
“I want both of them to get comfortable working off of each
other in one game. It’s going to make us stronger as a
team.”
And while Enquist is very impressed with the strong offensive
start that her team has gotten of to, she was mildly concerned
about its defensive performance.
“Defensively, we’re still a work in progress,”
she said. “We had some miscommunication, some bobbles, and
some wide throws. All of these issues are fixable and I’m
confident that we can get our defensive play to a level of our
offensive play.”