The UCLA student body may have been relaxing over spring break, but the softball team was busy at work.
Spring hitting, sprinting and sliding, but not spring breaking.
The No. 1 Bruins (33-2, 8-1 Pac-12) didn’t take their foot off the gas pedal over the weeklong spring break, as they played three different schools and won seven of eight games.
“We’ve just gone on full attack mode, like Defcon 5 … from the get-go,” said sophomore outfielder Alexis Bennett.
The Bruin barrage began in Seattle, Wash. on the weekend of March 22, as UCLA faced off against the No. 5 Washington Huskies. Nearly a year earlier, the Huskies swept the Bruins on UCLA’s home field.
“Last year was last year; we didn’t do a good job of making an adjustment,” said coach Kelly Inouye-Perez.
One thing UCLA didn’t adjust well to in 2013 was Washington’s pitching. The Bruins were shut out twice in the three-game series last year.
This season, UCLA made the adjustments necessary to make sure that history didn’t repeat itself. After winning the first game and losing the second, the Bruins bounced back and flipped the script on the Huskies, shutting them out 4-0 in the series finale.
“It was definitely a confidence for the team to have that ability to finish strong” Inouye-Perez said. “Any time you get W’s on the road, that’s big.”
UCLA’s lone loss to Washington did cause the Bruins to drop from first place to second in the Pac-12 standings, but UCLA would not allow its status as the top-ranked team in college softball to be compromised.
Over the next five games, the Bruins didn’t give voters any other reasons to drop them from their No. 1 ranking. UCLA went 5-0 against UC Santa Barbara and Utah, winning by an average margin of 6.6 runs per game. The lopsided victories presented a stark contrast from some of the Bruins’ victories prior to spring break, eight of which were decided by two runs or fewer.
“We knew that was kind of becoming our reputation – the team that, you know, scores with the walk-off hit or late in the game,” said senior pitcher Jessica Hall. “I think our focus lately has been to score each inning and score early, knowing that (if) we knock the momentum out of them early in the game, it will only benefit us.”
During the break, only one of UCLA’s seven victories was decided by fewer than four runs, and the Bruins outscored their opponents by a combined score of 49-18 in the eight games.
And the foot remains on the gas pedal.
“I’m looking forward to just continuing building momentum with whatever we have,” Inouye-Perez said. “I’m not taking any opponent lightly.”