After the 2007 UCLA softball team saw its season cut short by consecutive home losses in the NCAA Regionals, players felt a sense of vast disappointment, shock and disbelief.
The juniors on the team decided they never wanted to experience those emotions again.
Krista Colburn, Ashley Herrera, and Jelica Selden got together and started talking about everything they wanted to make sure would happen come 2008.
The girls were so determined to get the team back on track, they found themselves making a physical list of changes that needed to be made. The three initiated a player-run meeting with their coaches to go over their plans for a more successful 2008.
According to coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, the day that meeting was called was the day the 2008 season began.
“With the program we have, you can feel it,” Inouye-Perez said. “Last year there was emotion. Everyone had a reason to feel something. This year we’re a head-down, hard-working, mentally tougher Bruin team.”
Indeed, the team seems to have bounced back from their early post-season exit with a new sense of resolve.
Upon returning from winter break, each of the 18 members of the team had to take a conditioning test that checked for physical declines resulting from the three weeks off.
Last year, four players passed.
This year, all 18 players passed.
At least at the outset, the team seems ready for a trip back to Oklahoma City.
“Very clearly, our vision is that we are on a mission back to dominance,” Inouye-Perez said. “We’re the winningist program in the history of the game. We were the first to win 10 championships and this team is on a mission to be the first to win 20. This group will be the marker for the start of that.”
The team comes into the season ranked No. 10 nationally, with an extremely talented, yet youthful roster.
UCLA will be led by the All-American Colburn at the plate, and the school’s all-time strike-out leader Selden from the circle. Both seniors have already been named to the USA Softball Player of the Year watch list.
“The three of us seniors have a very interesting dynamic,” Colburn said. “Jelly and Ashley are great verbal leaders where as I tend to lack in that area. So I stick to leading by example because we do have such strong seniors.”
The Bruins lost eight seniors to graduation in 2007, including All-American’s Lisa Dodd and Jodi Legaspi. To fill those shoes, the team brought in nine freshmen, four of which were selected to the Team USA squad that won a gold medal at the Junior Women’s World Championships last year.
“We have what we believe to be the top recruiting class, in the freshman class,” Inouye-Perez said. “Five of the freshman could be on the field in the starting lineup day one.”
Neither Inouye-Perez nor sophomore Megan Langenfeld, who had a breakout freshman year and was a member of the junior national team, is concerned about the team’s perceived inexperience.
“The college game is very different in that now you’re facing the best of the best all the time,” Langenfeld said. “Making that transition is just knowing that you’re not always going to be perfect in every situation, and being able to shake off all those bad things that may happen. … They’re great girls and they’re extremely talented.”
Aside from its youth and talent, another essential aspect of this Bruin team is its competitive nature.
During a team retreat to Lake Arrowhead last October, coaches instilled some of the fundamental team principles in the girls, but also allowed them time to relax and bond. There was one ping-pong table at the retreat location and the girls got their use out of it, often playing until the wee hours of the morning. But this ping-pong wasn’t of the friendly, relaxed variety.
It quickly evolved into an intense, sweat evoking battle followed by victorious screams and grunts of disappointment.
“This team hates to lose,” Langenfeld said. “They’re very competitive, very driven and very focused.”
That competitiveness seems to have carried over from Lake Arrowhead to Easton Stadium. Last Friday the team played their final inter-squad scrimmage. With the game tied 2-2, an RBI game-winning single off the bat of junior Amanda Kamekona in the sixth inning sent players jumping off their dugout seats and into a round of hoots and hollers in anticipation of victory.
“It was 3-2 battle,” Colburn said. “We scrimmage a lot, but that was the first time it seemed like a real game. The girls had that competitive spirit and that competitive fire like a real game. I think that (game) really speaks volumes about what this team is about. … We’re having fun but its business. It’s 2-2, and no one’s laughing.”
Yet competition and softball aside, coach Inouye-Perez has ingrained a family-first attitude into the minds of her players, imploring them to keep their priorities straight with their softball “family” at the top.
“We do spend a lot of time together and we are a very close knit group,” Colburn said. “(The girls are) so much fun. We work very, very hard, we’re in the weight room at 6:30 a.m., but we find ways to help each other. It’s nice to have a group where you look around and you’re always concerned about how they’re doing.”
With the season set to open at home on Friday, Inouye-Perez knows what her team is: A talented, youthful, competitive and tight-knit group that is focused on the shared goal of a 12th National Championship.
“I sit here right now with a really calm confidence that we will just be able to play softball,” Inouye-Perez said. “The highs and lows, the ups and downs, the season that all strengthens you every day to prepare for what we are looking for which is at the end. I don’t have to go undefeated to feel prepared, but I expect us to. There is a confident calm and an excitement to just get out there and play softball.”