Before Monday’s doubleheader against Long Beach State, UCLA softball coach Kelly Inouye-Perez mentioned a quote to her team.
The quote came from Norman Shindle, and it reads: “A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others.”
The No. 2 UCLA softball team (41-4, 12-3 Pac-12) has been living out this quote all year. From the postgame tradition of complimenting the little things that teammates do, to power hitters laying down sacrifice bunts, the Bruins have embodied another quote that Inouye-Perez has echoed throughout the year: “Mission first, team always.”
And it seems as if the Bruins become most unified when their backs are against the wall at the end of the game.
On Monday night, UCLA was down to its final strike against Long Beach State, trailing 6-5 in the top of the seventh inning. With the bases loaded, junior pitcher/utility player Ally Carda did not try to be the hero at the plate.
“I definitely just tried to keep it simple. I didn’t want to do too much, ’cause when I do more that’s kinda when I fail,” Carda said.
Carda calmly hit a two-run single into center field, giving the Bruins a 7-6 lead. The next batter, freshman shortstop Delaney Spaulding, added another RBI single to give the Bruins an 8-6 lead. Then, UCLA’s leader in slugging percentage, junior catcher Stephany LaRosa, stepped to the plate with runners on second and third base for the Bruins.
Instead of going for the knockout home run, LaRosa remembered the pregame quote, and trusted the skills of her teammates. She drew a walk on seven pitches, loading the bases for sophomore third baseman Mysha Sataraka.
“I’m not out here by myself,” LaRosa said. “So kind of in those situations where I want to hit, just accepting that walk … if (I’m) not going to get a good pitch to hit, knowing that my teammate right behind me is gonna have my back.”
Sataraka came through with a two-run double to extend the UCLA lead to 10-6, and the Bruins would go on to win the game by that score.
The Bruins scored each of their five seventh-inning runs with two outs, and every hitter in the UCLA lineup had an at-bat in the inning.
“There’s not a great sense of ‘I’ in this team. There is a great sense of ‘team,'” Inouye-Perez said.