Pac-10 schedule causes casualties
After starting the season 35-0, mostly against weaker non-Pac-10
teams, the Bruins finally entered the tougher conference schedule
and have lost three games to highly ranked Pac-10 teams.
The unbeaten streak ended with a 1-0 loss to Stanford on March
30, and this weekend the team sustained another two losses, one to
No. 9 Arizona State 6-1 and one to No. 2 Arizona 4-0, before
bouncing back 3-0 against the Wildcats in the final game to prevent
a desert sweep.
UCLA is now 40-3, 3-3 in the Pac-10, and is looking to gain some
momentum heading into the next weekend series against visiting No.
14 Washington. They will play on Friday and Saturday, with both
games scheduled to start at 2 p.m.
Pitching slump?
After starting out the season with a perfect 16-0 record, Amanda
Freed has suffered three straight losses to drop to 16-3.
However, the problem wasn’t so much her pitching as it was
a lack of support from the UCLA offense. In the three losses, she
has received a grand total of one run. In the 1-0 Stanford loss,
the run was actually unearned and so Freed has been pitching pretty
well but not quite up to the incredible standard that she had set
previously.
Her ERA has risen from an incredible 0.20 to a still miniscule
0.54, and with fellow hurlers Courtney Dale (4-0, 0.83 ERA) and
Keira Goerl (15-0, 0.94 ERA) the Bruin pitching staff is still
going strong.
After the two opening losses on Friday and Saturday by Freed,
Goerl came back with a strong game Sunday, pitching all seven
innings and allowing only four hits with eight strikeouts. She
helped UCLA salvage the weekend series and gave them much-needed
confidence heading into the weekend against Washington.
Husky hopefuls
The Washington Huskies softball team, ranked No. 14, comes into
the weekend series against UCLA with a 25-14 record (3-3 Pac-10).
Like UCLA, they started off with a schedule full of non-conference
opponents in tournaments before entering the hectic and grinding
schedule of the Pac-10. Washington recently concluded a weekend
series with the Sun Devils of Arizona State, losing both games by
6-1 and 5-1. However, the Huskies upset the No. 2 Wildcats of
Arizona in the previous game, shutting them out for the first time
this year by a score of 1-0 behind solid defense and the strong
pitching of Tia Bollinger.
Freshman sensation
Even after the 6-1 loss to Arizona State, freshman sensation Tia
Bollinger still has a 23-3 record and has already set several
Washington freshman records, including most wins and shutouts. She
looks to continue her hot season against the Bruins. She has
already had 160 strikeouts and has won 13 of her last 14
decisions.
The right-handed native Californian was a high school star at
Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, where she was one of the
finalists for Gatorade High School Player of the Year. In her
senior year, she posted a 30-2 record and allowed an unbelievable
one earned run in more than 230 innings, giving her a 0.03 ERA with
over 400 strikeouts and leading her team to a national No. 3
ranking as a senior.
She has continued this success as a Husky and has become the
pitching ace of the team as a freshman, accounting for all but two
of the team’s wins. The struggling UCLA offense will need to
get on the board early and often or they could be in for a long
weekend.
Notes compiled by Michael Sneag, Daily Bruin Contributor.