The mob celebration around UCLA pitcher Anjelica Selden after
Sunday’s regional championship was different than most after
big wins.
While the Bruin players and coaches were jumping up and down and
high-fiving each other after beating Cal State Fullerton twice on
Sunday, 6-0 and 3-1, it was clear that UCLA was tired, emotionally
drained and relieved.
Sunday’s victory marked the end of two very long days in
which the Bruins had to win three straight games to win their
regional and advance to the NCAA Super Regionals, a best-of-three
series hosted by No. 7 seed UCLA against No. 10 Georgia at Easton
Stadium this upcoming weekend.
“It’s exciting to be able to coach a team that loves
being in the cooker,” UCLA coach Sue Enquist said.
“They play their best softball when playing under
pressure.”
The Bruins’ 11-inning, 2-1 loss to Cal State Fullerton on
Saturday morning pushed UCLA into the losers’ bracket of the
four-team, double-elimination NCAA Regional. Because of the loss,
the Bruins had to come back and play Saturday evening against UNLV
and beat Fullerton twice on Sunday to win the regional.
And while neither Fullerton nor UCLA would admit or acknowledge
it, the Bruin team on the field on Sunday appeared very different
from the team that had struggled on Saturday.
Sunday’s Bruins put pressure offensively on Fullerton
throughout both games. In the first inning of Sunday’s first
game, catcher Emily Zaplatosch belted a three-run homer to deep
left field. And in the first inning of the second game, shortstop
Jodie Legaspi’s RBI single gave UCLA a crucial early run.
“We had to go out there and have a plan from the first
pitch,” Legaspi said. “We had to set the tone for the
rest of the game.”
Saturday’s Bruins had failed to score much at all, with
the Fullerton game going scoreless until the 11th inning, and the
UNLV game remaining scoreless until the fourth.
But when the team has had its back against the wall, it has
always responded.
This year’s squad, unlike the teams from the past two
years when UCLA won back-to-back NCAA Championships, faced plenty
of adversity during the regular season, losing 16 games. But after
every cold streak and set of losses came a winning streak, just
like this past weekend at the NCAA Regionals.
“The teams that have that leadership along with the talent
have a tendency to go very far,” Enquist said.
“It’s going to come down to timely hitting. I’ll
take these kids against anyone.”
One very important constant for UCLA this weekend was the
pitching of freshman Anjelica Selden, who pitched 39 innings in
five games over the weekend. Selden also broke the UCLA
single-season strikeout record in the first inning of
Saturday’s first game with her 360th punchout of the season,
finishing the weekend with an astounding total of 404
strikeouts.
“She is a quick study,” Enquist said. “It says
a lot about her character for her to be able to be humiliated and
come back so decisively late in the game.”
Selden, like the rest of her team, has grown due to adversity as
the season has went on. After Saturday’s loss, the Bruins
never showed any signs of panicking, scoring first in their next
three games and playing fundamentally sound softball.
“It was fun to go out and do what we can do as a
team,” Zaplatosch said on Sunday. “It was definitely a
fun day.”