EDWARD LIN/ Daily Bruin Junior Amanda
Freed pitches against UNLV earlier this season. She leads
all Bruin pitchers with a 0.20 ERA.
By Andrew Borders
Daily Bruin Reporter
If you like baseball, think Braves-Mets. Basketball fan?
It’s just like Lakers-Blazers. And if you’re a football
freak, 49ers-Cowboys (five years ago, anyway) is on the
horizon.
On Saturday and Sunday, college softball’s version of
these great talent-based rivalries will be played at Easton Stadium
when the No. 1 UCLA Bruins (39-1, 2-1 Pac-10) and the No. 2 Arizona
Wildcats (38-2, 2-0) meet for two games.
This rivalry is so good that Arizona State (27-9, 2-1),
“only” No. 9 in the latest NFCA/USA Today poll, could
be an unfortunate afterthought. The Bruins and Sun Devils play
today at 2 p.m.
If you’ve ever been to Easton Stadium, you’ve
noticed the nine national championship banners stretched across the
outfield wall. The Bruins have appeared in 12 of the 19
Women’s College World Series championships, winning seven of
11 titles between 1982 and 1992. Arizona scored all five of its
titles in a span of seven years, 1991-97. Every year from 1991-98,
the Wildcats have appeared in the title game. The two squads have
even met in the championship game four times in the 1990s.
You might say these teams have a little history.
If that weren’t enough, the Bruins have another bit of
motivation: UCLA has beaten Arizona seven times in 24 chances since
1994. That stat can’t sit well with a team that has the kind
of competitive spirit UCLA has.
“In the Pac-10, it’s going to be about defense,
it’s going to be about pitching, and it’s going to be
about timely hitting,” UCLA Head Coach Sue Enquist said.
The No. 1 ranking carries with it the presumption that the
Bruins are proficient at all three. Looking over their shoulders,
teams ranked No. 2 and No. 9 can’t be slouches in the
fundamentals, either.
“We have pretty good pitching and pretty good defense and
pretty good hitting,” Arizona State Head Coach Linda Wells
said.
No, Enquist and Wells did not confer about their answers
beforehand.
But first, the Sun Devils. The last thing the Bruins want to do
is look ahead to Stanford when they should be thinking about Cal,
only to lose at Berkeley by 29 points. Whoops, wrong sport, but you
get the idea. No. 9 ASU is here first.
The Sun Devils earned that ranking because seven of them are at
or above .300 at the plate, with freshman infielder Phelan Wright
leading the pack at .392.
ASU’s pitching deserves quite a billing, too. Of the three
pitchers to record a decision, junior pitcher Erica Beach has the
highest ERA. She concedes all of 1.16 runs a game to her opponents.
Freshman Kristen Swetel is even tougher at 0.71.
Wells knows the Bruins’ strengths.
“We have to keep the ball in the park against them,”
she said.
She also knows UCLA’s biggest weakness. Wells said her
team has to “hope that we get a break from their
defense.”
Defense has been a point of criticism for the Bruins all season
long, leading to their first loss last Friday on an outfield error
in a 1-0 game.
After the Bruins and Sun Devils meet Friday, next comes the
first 2001 installment of the great UCLA-Arizona matchup.
As you’ve gathered so far, it looks like the two storied
programs are headed for a fine battle.
Ten Wildcats are at or over .300 on the year; five of them are
over .400. Senior outfielder Lauren Bauer is hitting .488 to lead
the team. Yes, .488.
If Bauer has an off day, the Bruins should be fine. Nicole
Giordano and Toni Mascarenas, also seniors, are only hitting .470
and .462, respectively.
“We’re in the Pac-10 now and we’re facing good
pitchers all the time,” sophomore shortstop Natasha Watley
said.
Arizona is no exception. Of the three pitchers to record
decisions, Jenny Gladding has the lowest ERA at a stingy 0.38.
Jennie Finch (0.47) and Becky Lemke (0.93) have shown that they can
be trusted throwing the ball, too.
Lastly, the host Bruins have put up stats deserving of their No.
1 ranking. Eight UCLA players have seen action in at least 37 of
the team’s 40 games, and junior catcher Stacey Nuveman (.448)
heads up a group of five Bruins over .400. Three more are over
.300.
Freshman Marcel Torres is the team leader at .484, though the
newcomer has played in just 17 games.
UCLA is more than decent at pitching, too. Junior Amanda Freed
leads the team with a 0.20 ERA. In other words, in every five
starts Freed gives up one run.
Freshman Keira Goerl is proving that the Bruins will be in
capable hands in the circle when seniors Courtney Dale (0.83) and
Stephanie Swenson (1.50) move on. Goerl has posted a 0.80 ERA,
including a perfect game March 6 against UC Riverside.
“The battle is the same no matter who the opponent
is,” Nuveman said.
Maybe so, but in observing this weekend’s one-versus-two
matchup, a couple of wins for the Bruins would be an important step
toward reclaiming the softball legacy that tipped toward Tucson in
the last decade.