UCLA Softball Drops Women's College World Series Opener to Texas
If the Bruins want to take home their 13th national title, they'll need to win four in a row to keep their hopes alive.
Doing so would also include scoring some runs, which came at a premium for the blue and gold Thursday morning.
No. 5 seed UCLA softball (48-9, 19-5 Pac-12) was nearly blanked by Texas (44-19-1, 12-6 Big 12) in the opening game of the Women's College World Series, avoiding the shutout with a late home run before ultimately losing 7-2. The Bruins had little to no offensive production across the first five frames, while their pair of aces was unable to force the same lethargy out of the Longhorns' bats.
Junior pitcher Megan Faraimo allowed two hits in the first inning, and even though she danced around the multiple runners in scoring position to escape the jam and followed that up a 1-2-3 second, it wasn't long before Texas chased the Pac-12 Pitcher of the Year out of the circle.
A deep shot to center field with one down in the third came just inches away from clearing the wall, but it still turned into an RBI triple that gave the Longhorns the lead. A single the next at-bat drove in another run, and catcher Mary Iakopo padded the lead up to 4-0 win a two-run bomb to left.
Faraimo had allowed four total earned runs in the past three weeks for an ERA of 1.48, but she couldn't make it through the third before letting up the same amount of damage and getting pulled Thursday.
Senior pitcher Holly Azevedo entered the game and retired the side, only to allow another run in the fourth on back-to-back, two-out hits. The Longhorns kept the heat on in the sixth with another pair of hits, and the second was a home run to right that made it 7-0 and forced Azevedo's exit.
No one other than Faraimo or Azevedo had entered the circle for the Bruins all postseason, and they had combined to allow just 1.4 runs per game through the Regionals and Super Regionals. After the avalanche of runs Thursday, though, coach Kelly Inouye-Perez made the change to graduate Lauren Shaw midway through the sixth.
UCLA had not been run-ruled at the Women's College World Series since 1997, and they had only suffered that fate once all season. To avoid the early finish, Shaw stranded a runner on third, but the damage was already done.
The seven runs Texas scored marked their most in their own Women's College World Series history.
The Bruins, meanwhile, threatened to get on the board first just three batters into the opening frame. After senior shortstop Briana Perez doubled to left-center, senior catcher Delanie Wisz singled to center on a bloop that just got past the second baseman's glove.
Perez, who got a late jump, rounded third to try and score, but was narrowly tagged out on the hand by Iakopo's reaching tag at the plate. That was the last hit UCLA had with a runner aboard until the bottom of the sixth, as their next five opportunities with traffic on the bases went unfulfilled.
Senior first baseman Kinsley Washington led off the sixth with a single, then Wisz jacked one to left that ended Texas' shutout bid. That pair of seniors went 4-for-6, while the rest of the lineup went 2-for-19 on the day.
UCLA will play the loser of Thursday's contest between No. 1 seed Oklahoma and No. 9 seed Northwestern in an elimination game Friday night. The Bruins are one of four teams who have ever lost their first game in Oklahoma City and went on to win the championship – doing so in 2003 – while the Sooners did it just last year.
The new scheduling format of the Women's College World Series rewards winners with an extra day of rest, though, so running the table all the way to the finals in 2022 would be an unprecedented achievement.
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