When the Bruin softball team heads to Oklahoma City to face Arizona on Thursday in the opening game of the Women’s College World Series, it will turn to a group of seniors as its anchor.
Krista Colburn is one of those key pieces on the Bruin team.
The senior outfielder has started all but one game of her four-year UCLA career. It’s been an up-and-down ride, but now Colburn and the other Bruin seniors have a chance at the national title that has eluded the program for the past three years.
“I don’t necessarily think my expectation bar is higher,” Colburn said. “But I think that having all that experience under my belt does help me be able to help the team.”
The senior from Mukilteo, Wash., has set the tone for the Bruins this year; she’s hit .335 and is second on the team with 43 runs scored.
“She knew that she wanted to be a leader by example,” coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “She’s just a model Bruin in that if you watch her she does everything right. As far as her work ethic, I can name only a handful of Bruins that have a work ethic that truly embodies what a champion is made of, and Krista Colburn will go down as one of those.”
Colburn is now the leader of a Bruin team that is a week away from a national title. Colburn’s journey to this leadership role has been shaped by her love of the game.
“I always wanted to come here,” Colburn said. “There was really no other place I wanted to go. I just think an amazing tradition has been set here.”
Despite that certainty there was an adjustment period for Colburn once she arrived at UCLA from her small hometown in Washington.
“L.A. was a big shock to me,” Colburn said. “I’m from a little town in Washington. I’ve always been really independent. I think learning to ask for help when I needed help was always not a challenge, but not something fun to do.”
In her first season as a Bruin, Colburn proved her strength as a softball player and started every single game on a team that made it all the way to the national championship series before losing to Michigan.
That bitter experience could help to motivate Colburn and the other Bruin veterans this week in Oklahoma City.
“It feels like it was yesterday, and I can remember the exact feeling of how I felt afterwards ““ like I got punched in the stomach ““ when we didn’t win,” Colburn said.
In that first season Colburn also lacked the leadership ability she would find later in her career, and she sometimes let her fiery competitiveness get the best of her.
“She came in kind of wearing her heart on her sleeve a little too much,” fellow senior Ashley Herrera said. “It’s because she’s so intense and so competitive, she can get really frustrated.”
For her next two seasons as a Bruin, Colburn continued to develop as a player, but went through a huge change with her team when Inouye-Perez transitioned from assistant to head coach.
“She was always the “˜cool aunt’ type,” Colburn said. “We could talk to her about anything, and it was open. When she changed into becoming the head coach, I think it was difficult for the older girls ““ the seniors now ““ to see her in a different light. We were so used to “˜Kelly I.,’ and now she’s “˜Coach I.'”
Inouye-Perez expressed a similar sentiment toward the transition.
“I think that in the beginning as an assistant, I really communicated to her a lot on a different level,” Inouye-Perez said.
“It’s funny, she thinks that I am always pretty hard on her, and I am. By nature, for the leaders of the program, the expectations are higher. It’s the biggest compliment as a Bruin.”
As a senior, Colburn has taken the initiative to help lead the team and put the past behind them. One of the biggest reasons for this was that Colburn suffered an injury in the beginning of the season, which could have potentially ended her career right there. Inouye-Perez pointed to that setback as an indicator to Colburn of what softball is really about.
“She even wrote herself a note,” said Inouye-Perez. “”˜I’ll never take an at-bat for granted, I’ll love every opportunity I get to be in the Bruin uniform.’ And she signed it “˜Krista Colburn.'”