BRIDGET O’BRIEN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Bruin sophomore
third baseman and Tucson native Tairia Mims smacks
the ball in the Bruins’ 4-0 loss to Arizona on Saturday.
Arizona State 6, UCLA 1 Arizona
4, UCLA 0 UCLA 3, Arizona 0
By Andrew Borders
Daily Bruin Reporter
After No. 1 UCLA was soundly defeated by No. 9 Arizona State on
Friday, 6-1, and by No. 2 Arizona on Saturday, 4-0, the Bruins
regained their top-rank form in their 3-0 victory over the Wildcats
on Sunday.
Friday, junior pitcher Amanda Freed picked up her second loss of
the season by giving up seven hits and three runs. Freshman Keira
Goerl then entered in a pre-planned switch and gave up nine more
hits and three more runs.
The Bruins couldn’t compensate for poor pitching with
their bats, either. ASU junior pitcher Kirsten Voak limited the
Bruins to two hits and a run over her 5 1/3 innings pitched, and
junior Erica Beach surrendered three hits in 1 2/3 innings.
Beach was also the offensive star with four RBIs and a home
run.
“They looked past us,” ASU junior outfielder said of
UCLA and its impending No. 1-vs.-No. 2 matchup with Arizona on
Saturday and Sunday.
 NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Sophomore Tairia
Mims tries to beat the throw to first base in Friday’s 6-1
loss to ASU. The Bruins went 1-2 over the weekend.
“It’s not a surprising outcome,” Sun Devil Head
Coach Linda Wells said. “We were just hot hitting.”
UCLA Head Coach Sue Enquist lamented the team’s
performance.
“They weren’t even throwing strikes. We were
swinging at all of those,” she said. “We just plain old
got our butt kicked.”
“We just didn’t bring it,” Freed added.
Saturday, Freed started again, giving up four hits and four runs
while throwing all seven innings. All the damage was done in the
fourth inning, when Arizona freshman Leneah Manuma scored on one of
Freed’s two errors in the game.
Freshman outfielder and Thousand Oaks native Mackenzie
Vandergeest made her homecoming special, putting an exclamation
point on the inning with a three-run homer.
Wildcat pitcher Jennie Finch, a longtime competitor with Freed
as the two went to high school 10 miles apart, bested her foe by
limiting the Bruins to two hits.
“I think the difference was some mistakes,” Arizona
Head Coach Mike Candrea said. “Today, (Freed) made a
mistake.”
“It wasn’t even an entirely bad inning, just a
couple bad pitches,” Freed said. “But they
happen.”
About the home run pitch to Vandergeest that proved to be the
Bruins’ death knell, Freed said, “I think she knew it
was coming.”
Sunday, however, UCLA exacted revenge. The Bruins took the lead
early, when in the first inning junior catcher Stacey Nuveman flew
out to left, allowing Freed to tag up from third and score.
UCLA struck again in the fifth, when senior designated hitter
Courtney Dale doubled, scoring Freed and sophomore shortstop
Natasha Watley.
UCLA’s Goerl stifled the potent Wildcat offense,
scattering four hits over her complete-game outing. She struck out
eight, walking only one.
Her Wildcat counterpart, freshman Jenny Gladding, also gave up
four hits, but was hurt by walks, giving up five. Gladding handed
out five free passes, and the Bruins cashed in early as Freed
scored the first run after having been walked.
Enquist lauded her team’s resiliency. “We could have
come out here and been beaten up pretty good,” she said.
“This team had a lot of character to come out today after the
past two days.”
It was Candrea’s turn to lament on Sunday.
“Offensively, we couldn’t quite get things
going,” he said. “We got beat by our own
game.”