NCAA Softball Preview : Arizona vs UCLA
The greatest rivalry in College Softball takes place in Los Angeles in the Super Regionals as the No. 3 national seed UCLA Bruins host No. 14 seed Arizona. These rivals have played 138 times with UCLA leading the all-time series 81-57 and have won the last seven series meetings between the two. UCLA and Arizona played for the National Championship in 2010, which was won by the Bruins. This time it will be a trip to Oklahoma City at stake. The action will start today at 9 pm on ESPN.
At The Plate
The Bruins come in hitting .338 as a team with 58 home runs. UCLA is led by Aaliyah Jordan who leads the Bruins with 12 home runs and 64 RBI’s while hitting .435 on the season. Bubba Nickels played well in the regional batting .555 over four games with two home runs, a double and seven RBI’s. As a team, they had some issues in the three games against Cal State Fullerton. But that has not been the norm.
Arizona comes in hitting .299 as a team with 74 home runs. The Wildcats are led by Alyssa Palomino who leads Arizona with 18 home runs and a .370 average. In the region games they only managed to score 11 runs in three games, now that was enough to win all three, but they need better run production against the Bruins.
In The Circle
Arizona is led by Taylor McQuillin (27-10) who has ten shutouts on the season. McQuillin comes in with 1.45 ERA and looks to take Arizona back to the Women’s College World Series for the first time since 2010 when Kenzie Fowler led the Wildcats back to the championship series.
UCLA is led by Rachel Garcia (25-3) who is a front-runner for College Softball player of the year. Garcia carries a 1.01 ERA in the season. She is a two-way player as well and is batting .357 with ten home runs and 51 RBI’s.
Analysis/Prediction
Two weeks ago many would have said that UCLA would win this series going away. Similar to what happened during the regular season when the Bruins swept the Wildcats in Tucson. But Arizona comes in playing better softball than they were then. The Bruins looked vulnerable last week, and after all, anything can happen in big rivalry games. We pick the Bruins in a classic three-game series.
