Despite all that the Bruins have done to deserve otherwise, Sue
Enquist trusts her team.
The UCLA softball coach saw her squad lose two heartbreaking
games to No. 7 Washington over the weekend, but still remains
positive about her No. 2 Bruins. So far, UCLA has had a four-game
losing streak in which they had a lead in every game in the fifth
inning or later.
“I know for a fact this team will put it together,”
Enquist said. “Because the competition we’ve played
against is so good, we have to do a good job with our pitching,
defense and offense all on the same day.”
The Bruins’ losses to Washington ““ 3-1 Friday and
6-5 Saturday ““ did come against a top-10 team and an annual
national powerhouse.
And the first two games of the losing streak were against No. 1
Arizona on April 3-4, two weekends ago.
But UCLA, one of the favorites to win the Women’s College
World Series this season, needs to be able to beat teams like
Arizona and Washington to repeat as NCAA champions.
“We cannot get any closer to getting all of the parts of
the game on the same day,” Enquist said. “I believe in
this team’s character. They know not to get down, despite the
heartbreakers.”
Enquist isn’t alone in her belief.
Outfielder Andrea Duran, who went 2-for-5 in Saturday’s
game, echoed her coach’s thoughts.
“We know we’re playing really well,” Duran
said. “We’ve just been having some bad luck.”
Saturday, the Bruins were up 5-1 going into the bottom of the
fifth inning. They had just tallied two insurance runs in the top
of the inning, seemingly giving ace pitcher Keira Goerl all she
would need.
Goerl had only allowed two hits in the first four innings.
However, in the fifth, she walked a couple of hitters, allowed a
couple of hits, and allowed two runs to make the score 5-3. With
two outs, Washington’s Kathy Fiske hit a three-run homer to
put the Huskies in the lead.
Goerl, the star of the 2003 WCWS and one of the best pitchers in
UCLA history, has struggled lately. She has given up 18 runs in her
last three starts, all losses.
“Keira will come through for us,” Enquist said.
“She just needs more innings to get on solid
footing.”
While the offense did score five runs Saturday, the Bruins left
14 runners on base.
“We’re putting plenty of runners on base,”
Enquist said. “We will clutch up.”
Friday, the Bruins left only eight runners on base ““ but
only scored one run.
Washington pitcher Ashley Boek limited the Bruins to four
hits.
UCLA pitcher Lisa Dodd, throwing a two-hit shutout, was
outdueling Boek until the bottom of the sixth inning.
Three hits, a walk and a hit-by-pitch with the bases loaded led
to three runs by the Huskies.
The Bruins’ four-game losing streak is their first since
1998.
“We aren’t putting everything together at the right
time,” Duran said. “Everything isn’t going as
planned.”
Though four straight hasn’t happened for six years, the
Bruins did have a streak where they lost three-out-of-four games
last year.
But after that stretch last season, UCLA won 21 of their
remaining 23 games en route to the NCAA Championship.
“It’s still early,” Duran said. “The
more games we play, we’ll be better. We don’t need to
win the Pac-10 to win the World Series. We didn’t last year.
We’re not worried.”