Easton Stadium doesn’t have varnished wood like Pauley Pavilion. It doesn’t seat 100,000 like the Rose Bowl. It doesn’t sit in the middle of campus like Drake Stadium. It doesn’t host concerts like the Los Angeles Tennis Center.
It’s at the top of the Hill, almost past the gates of Bel Air.
Past the ivy-covered walls and the 1,300 bleacher seats, past the manicured clay infield and grassy outfield is a sun-bleached blue wall. There are 22 numbers in faded gold on that wall ““ a series of dates from 1979 to 2004, and the numbers 1 to 11.
That’s the legacy of the most dominant program in college softball. Today, UCLA softball begins its journey to Oklahoma City ““ the Women’s College World Series ““ where it hopes to gain a record-setting 12th national championship.
And the road starts at Easton.
“It’s helpful to stay at home and be able to play on the field that (we have) practiced on for the past year,” senior Krista Colburn said.
Hosting an opening round tournament has become almost a tradition for the Bruins, who have hosted one every year since 2004. This weekend, the second-seeded Bruins (45-7) host Nevada (42-16), Purdue (34-21) and Cal State Fullerton (27-26-1).
It’s the last team on that list that has been the most problematic. The Titans shut out the Bruins just before the start of Pac-10 play in a middle-of-the-week game the Bruins admit was not their best.
“Last game, we didn’t show up,” freshman Samantha Camuso said. “We were just struggling offensively and defensively at that time. (Today’s) game will be completely different.”
“When we played (Fullerton) earlier in the year, you could call it a boring midweek game,” senior Ashley Herrera said.
Despite their high seeding in the regional, Fullerton is also the team with whom the Bruins are the most familiar and against whom the Bruins have had the least success. The two schools have met 68 times; that’s more than the Bruins have played Pac-10 foes Stanford and Washington.
Of teams with a body of work against the Bruins of 10 or more games, Cal State Fullerton is the closest to parity with UCLA: UCLA leads the series 35-32-1.
Even Pac-10 rival Arizona can’t claim that kind of proximity.
UCLA dominates the postseason, though, with an 11-4 mark.
“We’re definitely excited for the payback,” Herrera said. “It’s a must-win for us (today) because we want to dominate the postseason. … We’re just looking at Fullerton. “
That wisdom, focus and drive is part competitive spirit, part philosophy and part last season’s early postseason exit. In 2007, UCLA lost back-to-back games and was eliminated from the tournament.
“This is a completely different group from last year,” coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “Looking at last year’s postseason and last year as a whole, it was very emotional. … We don’t get caught up in the emotional downturn of not being successful every time. It’s our goal to be able to recover quickly.”
The Bruins have only lost back-to-back games once this year: at Arizona State and at Arizona, the No. 6 and No. 7-seed in the tournament, respectively.
After the Bruins play Fullerton, they will have to face either Purdue or Nevada.
They beat Nevada in the first game of the season and haven’t faced Purdue since 2002. What’s more, Purdue has never been to the NCAA Tournament.
But the Bruins have never worried about the other team.
In the postseason, “the game isn’t any different,” Inouye-Perez said. “If we play our game, I feel good about any other jersey in the other dugout.”
Herrera echoed her coach’s sentiment.
“They’re other shirts in the other dugout. We’ll just do our thing,” Herrera said.
Herrera is the sole remaining member of the 2004 championship team. She said she sees many similarities between this year’s team and the 2004 team: both had large freshman classes and both were captained by senior pitchers and position players.
At the beginning of fall, Inouye-Perez said the team set itself on a “mission back to dominance.”
“We want every Bruin here to say that they left this program with a championship ring,” Inouye-Perez said.
The road to that ring starts in earnest today.