UCLA entered the 2023 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic as the No. 1 team in the country, winning five games before picking up their first loss in a run-rule defeat against No. 2 Oklahoma.
This year is not the same story.
Starting the season with the biggest loss in program history and a 75% new pitching staff while narrowly holding onto a top-20 ranking, the Bruins are heading into the tournament with a completely different hand of cards than last season.
No. 19 UCLA softball (3-4) will play its first of five games at the 2024 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic against Nebraska (6-3) on Friday in Cathedral City, California before facing Northwestern (5-2). Saturday afternoon, UCLA will play No. 22 Baylor (3-3) and Illinois (1-4) for the first time this season, before ending the tournament on Sunday playing No. 5 Tennessee (4-2), who it was supposed to play last weekend before a weather cancellation.
Redshirt senior catcher Sharlize Palacios said the team has been focusing on working together as a unit as they prepare for the tournament this weekend.
“Preseason is just a really good time for us to get to know each other, get to know how we’re going to play alongside each other,” Palacios said. “I think one thing that we do really well is we fight back, and as Bruins, we’re always just looking to continue for the next pitch and fight for each other.”
The Bruins have a stacked schedule this season filled with highly competitive teams, which has included four top-10 teams as of when they played. Over the past two weekends of competition, UCLA has lost three of the four top-10 games it has played, defeating then-No. 5 Florida State.
Palacios said playing such high-caliber teams in the preseason gives her team the opportunity to showcase what they can do and figure out what they need to work on throughout the season.
“The Mary Nutter is a really awesome tournament. There’s always great teams that show up, and I think it’s a really good time for us all to just continue to challenge ourselves,” said Palacios. “I think it’s really important to get this competition early on to be able to just understand how we as a team react to the game and things that happen during the game.”
UCLA has been a consistent team in attendance at the Mary Nutter Classic for several years, going undefeated through five games in the 2022 tournament. The tournament has given the Bruins the opportunity to play in exhibition games against national teams such as the USA Olympic Team in 2020 and Team Japan in 2018.
Celebrating the 20th year of the Mary Nutter Classic, associate head coach Kirk Walker – the co-founder and owner of the tournament – said he has seen the tournament grow each year.
“The focal point was to create a West Coast event that was high caliber, a great opportunity for fans and in great weather,” Walker said. “It’s really grown, and it started out with 16 teams, and now it’s usually 32 teams every year.”
Paying tribute to Walker’s late mentor, Mary Nutter, the tournament has captured the attention of fans and teams all over the country. The warm weather of Cathedral City and the level of talent displayed across the fields tends to draw in large crowds, which Walker said has helped grow the support for the sport of softball.
“There’s so many fans that come in not only from LA, Phoenix, Vegas, San Diego and here locally, but we have people and fans that come in from across the country,” Walker said. “I think it’s just a great place to go and have five fields of tremendous talent, games being played all day long, and it’s an amazing environment that celebrates softball.”
With five games on the docket, the Bruins will have a chance to get back over .500 for the first time since Feb. 10 this weekend.
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