It certainly wasn’t a typical day at the park for the Bruin softball team Wednesday.
No. 1 UCLA (32-3) hasn’t allowed more than two runs in any one of its past 25 games. The team hadn’t really received any sort of challenge in its past six games and didn’t have to go to extra innings in any of those games.
All that changed Wednesday against No. 24 Washington (22-11-1) when the Bruins had to go extra innings against the Huskies after dropping a five-run lead in the fifth inning.
In the bottom of the eighth, with the score tied at six, freshman GiOnna DiSalvatore was walked with the bases loaded, scoring Julie Burney. It all led to a familiar result: another Bruin victory.
“This definitely was not our A-game,” freshman outfielder Samantha Camuso said. “But with our talent and determination we were about to push through and win even though we were not at our best.”
The Huskies proved that they came ready to challenge the Bruins, jumping on the scoreboard early with one run against freshman pitcher Donna Kerr in the first inning. It was a rare moment of the season when the Bruins did not score the first run of the game.
“(Washington) started a freshman pitcher, and it took time for us to figure out what her game was,” catcher Kaila Shull said. “Once we figured it out, we were able to adjust and play our game again.”
It looked as if the Bruins had Washington pitcher Aleah Macon all figured out when their bats came alive with some big hits in the fourth inning and they built a 6-1 lead.
But Washington was not ready to go down easily and answered with five runs off of Kerr in the fifth to tie the game at 6-6.
Bruin ace Anjelica Selden relieved Kerr after Washington’s big inning; she pitched three scoreless innings and struck out seven batters.
After the game pushed into extra innings, fans waited for a Bruin hero to pull through with the top of the lineup coming up in the bottom of the eighth.
But there was no clutch hit from the Bruins.
Washington pitchers struggled all day with control. Starter Aleah Macon walked five Bruins. In the bottom of the eighth, reliever Caitlin Noble walked four UCLA batters in a row to surrender the winning run.
That anticlimactic finish certainly didn’t disappoint coach Kelly Inouye-Perez.
“Because (Washington) fought back after our big rally it came back down to me saying, “˜I need a runner on, someone needs to move her 60 feet, and we need to score,'” she said. “And that’s championship softball.”
Inouye-Perez was pleased with the close-game experience her team faced, even though they didn’t dominate the way they have throughout the season.
“The game is not over until the last out,” Inouye-Perez said. “It’s like a boxing match, where they throw the first punch, we throw the next, they fight back, but as long as we get the last punch, that’s what matters ““ that’s UCLA softball.”