UCLA softball swings into new season
Defending champs heavily favored to beat Lions Saturday
By Brent Boyd
Nearly eight months after capturing its fifth national
championship in the past eight seasons, the UCLA softball team will
begin defense of its title Saturday against Loyola Marymount in a
doubleheader at Easton Field.
Although returning with the aspirations of repeating last year’s
success, this season’s squad must aim to achieve its goal by
different means than a season ago.
Losing first-team All-American and team leader Jennifer Brundage
to graduation, along with last season’s NCAA pitching champion
Tanya Harding makes it necessary for the entire team to step up a
level.
"To fulfill the consistency that they brought to the team, we
need more of a team effort to contribute every day for us to be
successful," co-head coach Sharron Backus said.
Backus, the all-time winningest softball coach in the NCAA, with
800 career victories, will be returning for her 21st year, along
with former Bruin softball player, Sue Enquist, who will be
coaching her eighth season at UCLA.
Despite losing quality players, the Bruins – ranked preseason
No. 1 – have plenty of talented performers returning and were
selected by Pac-10 coaches to repeat as conference champions.
According to Enquist, the strongest part of the club will be up
the middle, with the double-play combination of shortstop Nicole
Odom and second baseman Kelly Howard intact for the third
consecutive year.
Howard has been a model of consistency for UCLA, starting every
game in her three-year career, and sporting a .403 batting average
and six home runs last season.
The pitching staff should also be strong, as junior B’Ann Burns
returns on the heels of two consecutive 20-win seasons, while
senior Kaci Clark, in Westwood for her second season after
transferring from Georgia State, will try to repeat her undefeated
performance of a year ago.
The Bruins will also be looking to the youth of the club for key
contributions. Freshmen Julie Adams, Christie Ambrosi and Julie
Marshall are all expected to compete for starting jobs and to earn
significant playing time.
"I can’t remember the last time we were this deep,"Enquist said.
"Collectively, we are potentially very explosive offensively, all
the way down the batting order."
As for its opening game, UCLA is the heavy favorite over the
Lions, who return six starters from a team that finished 28-36-1 a
year ago, including an 8-0 loss at the hands of the Bruins.
However, UCLA knows not to overlook Loyola Marymount in its 1 p.m.
showdown.
"They are a building program and should be tremendously improved
over last season," Backus said. "We can’t look past anybody,
because we know that everybody will be gunning for us, being the
defending national champions."Comments to
webmaster@db.asucla.ucla.edu