All year, the UCLA softball team has insisted that the team in the other dugout is “just another set of jerseys.”
All year, the Bruins have placed emphasis on the fact that UCLA softball is “championship softball.”
Based on these premises, the team has asserted all year that no one beats UCLA but UCLA.
And in their final game of the season at the Women’s College World Series, that’s exactly what happened.
The team with 10 NCAA Championships to their name beat themselves.
“Today wasn’t our day,” coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “We had opportunities, and we gave them a run. We never got a chance to clutch up and get it done. But we definitely had opportunities. We hit (Florida pitcher Stacey) Nelson. We advanced some runners. At the end of the day, we came up short.”
The No. 2-seed Bruins fell to No. 1 Florida 2-0 in an elimination game on Survival Saturday of the 2008 Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.
The loss was the second in as many days, coming less than 24 hours after a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Arizona State. The two losses were enough to send UCLA home and end its quest for a record 11th NCAA championship.
“It’s disappointing,” senior pitcher Anjelica Selden said. “I think overall we fought. That’s all you can do in a game. Obviously we could have done a better job of staying sharp on offense and defense. It just didn’t work out for us.”
The Gators got the only run they would need in the bottom of the first inning. Florida leadoff hitter Kim Waleszonia drew a walk on four pitches to start the frame. Waleszonia stole second prior to a foul-pop out by Aja Paculba, which brought Florida’s Ali Gardiner to the plate and presented the pivotal moment of the contest.
Gardiner tapped a ground-ball chopper to Selden’s left between the pitching circle and first base. Rather than forcing one of her infielders to charge the ball and make a tough play, Selden, who cannot throw overhand and has been known to have trouble throwing to first, fielded the ball in an attempt to make the play. Though she never appeared to get a secure handle on the ball in her glove, Selden cleanly transferred the ball to her throwing hand as she made strides toward first base.
It was the throw that got her.
Selden attempted a backhand flip to first baseman GiOnna DiSalvatore that sailed several feet to DiSalvatore’s right on the second-base side. As the ball trickled toward the outfield grass, Waleszonia was able to score easily from second. That unearned run was all the Gators would need.
The Bruins certainly had their own opportunities to put runs on the board. Whereas the Gators effectively played small ball to help them score, the Bruins could not do the same in the first and third innings.
Like Florida, UCLA got their leadoff hitter on base in the first when freshman Katie Schroeder got a slap single to left. But senior Krista Colburn was unable to move Schroeder into scoring position, popping up her sacrifice bunt attempt for a force-out at second.
As a result, Amanda Kamekona’s single to left failed to go down as an RBI. Both runners advanced on a wild pitch putting Colburn at third and Kamekona at second with one out. But cleanup hitter Megan Langenfeld couldn’t bring either of her teammates home. Langenfeld grounded out to third, and the freshman All-American DiSalvatore struck out to send the Bruins back to the dugout without any runs.
In the third, senior Ashley Herrera led off with a single up the middle. Up came Schroeder, normally a bunt specialist, who missed bunt attempts on her first two tries and proceeded to strike out. Colburn again hit into a fielder’s choice, and Kamekona came up again with a runner on first rather than second.
Kamekona, who went 3-for-3 on the day, singled again, this time to right, on a ball that would have almost certainly scored the speedy Herrera had she been moved to second on a sacrifice bunt from Schroeder. But a strikeout from Langenfeld squandered yet another scoring opportunity for the Bruins.
“I think we didn’t adjust soon enough (to Nelson),” Colburn said. “I am really proud of our team and the fight that we all have in us. But like I said, we didn’t adjust soon enough.”
The Gators would add an insurance run in the bottom of the sixth thanks to a laser off the bat of Le-Net Franklin that stayed fair down the third baseline. But aside from those few scoring chances, the game was essentially another pitchers’ duel.
Selden pitched well in the loss, allowing only three hits and recording nine strikeouts for the third consecutive game. Nelson, pitching in her second game of the day, gave up five hits but zero runs in the victory. In less than a day, she pitched 16 innings of shutout softball.
“Coming into the second game, I knew what I had to do, to just go out and pitch,” Nelson said. “I looked up at the scoreboard in the sixth, and I was just taken back. I was like, “˜Whoa, it’s the sixth inning.’ And I just couldn’t believe it. It went by really quick, and it didn’t feel like six innings.
“It was definitely a good day in my life.”
Despite the loss, the Bruins finish their year with a 51-9 record and a Women’s College World Series appearance. All this comes one year after the team was eliminated in the regional round of the NCAA Tournament.
Florida coach Tim Walton said his team’s win was even more special because of the respect his program has for UCLA.
“This is a huge win for our program, a huge win for our players and team ““ any time you go against the caliber and the name of UCLA. UCLA and the College World Series go hand in hand, and to be able to come out on top against them in the losers’ bracket with our backs against the wall is a tremendous accomplishment for our whole team.”