The UCLA softball team had finally reached its boiling point.
A 7-0 loss to Oregon State on Friday left the Bruins exasperated and incensed. This wasn’t the way this season was supposed to be going.
“Emotionally, (the loss) was very embarrassing,” coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “If we don’t play our game, it gets kind of magnified by errors and not being able to stop the bleeding. It’s been a theme this season.”
Rather than let the loss ruin the weekend, a refocused and inspired team came back and played some of its best softball of the season on Saturday and Sunday.
No. 14 UCLA (28-11, 4-4 Pac-10) handily defeated No. 10 Oregon (37-8, 3-5) in the final two games of the three-game road trip by scores of 13-3 on Saturday and 5-1 on Sunday after falling to the No. 16 Beavers (32-14, 4-4) on Friday.
“We’ve been losing kind of big lately, and to win big twice is just huge,” junior outfielder Krista Colburn said. “I think we can just take this momentum that we’ve gotten and just ride it.”
After being completely shut down by Oregon State senior pitcher Brianne McGowan, who set a team record for career strikeouts in the Beavers’ triumph over the Bruins, the Bruin offense rebounded in a big way against Oregon pitchers Alicia Cook and Melissa Rice.
The Bruins put up five quick runs in the first two innings of Saturday’s game against Rice and didn’t cool down until the end of the game. Senior first and second basemen Lisa Dodd, in the middle of what is by far her finest offensive season as a Bruin, reached base four times and had two RBIs while senior shortstop Jodie Legaspi hit her eighth home run of the year. Colburn added three hits, three runs scored and two RBIs from the leadoff spot.
“It gets emotionally draining riding the highs and lows we’ve been riding,” Colburn said. “We’ve been talking a lot about what we need to do and on Saturday, we just came out and did it. Instead of talking about it, we came out and executed from the first pitch of the game.”
Sunday’s game featured more production from Dodd and Colburn and an especially strong effort from freshman pitcher and first baseman Megan Langenfeld. Dodd had two more hits and two RBIs, including her team-leading 10th home run with two outs and nobody on base in the first inning. Colburn also had two hits and two RBIs, along with two runs scored and a stolen base.
But the big hero on Sunday was Langenfeld, who had her finest pitching performance of her UCLA career at a time in the season when the Bruins needed her the most. Langenfeld pitched all seven innings, striking out a career-high eight hitters while allowing just three hits, one walk and no earned runs.
“My keys today were to just get ahead and let them put the ball in play,” Langenfeld said. “I got a lot of ground balls and easy fly balls.”
The Bruins continue their seven-game road trip this weekend, with a game against No. 17 Stanford and two games against Cal. It’s a perfect opportunity for UCLA to see if it can build off of the last two games and start a winning streak.
“I definitely think (the wins against Oregon) are a turning point,” Dodd said. “I think we’re just sick of losing. We’re trying to come together and make a conscious decision to not lose anymore.”