LOS ANGELES — There’s a trap that can ensnare teams at this point in the season, when conference play ends and regionals arrive. The teams that fall for the ruse allow the increased stakes to change their identity and their formula for winning softball games.
UCLA head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez learned to avoid that ambush circa 2010, she says, when winning her first national championship as a coach reshaped her outlook.
“The trap is thinking that ‘you’ve got to do more, you’ve got to do something different,’” Inouye-Perez told the Southern California News Group on Wednesday. “For us, we’re just wanting to continue to play softball, find consistency in what we’re doing.”
That starts Friday, when sixth-seeded UCLA (37-10) hosts Grand Canyon at 5:30 p.m. in the Los Angeles Regional. Virginia Tech and San Diego State, which open the regional at 3 p.m., round out the quadrant.
Grand Canyon (48-11) upset the Bruins in this exact spot last season. Then another defeat, at the hands of Liberty the following afternoon, ended the Bruins’ season.
“We got cold at the wrong time,” Inouye-Perez said Wednesday, addressing the losses in last year’s Los Angeles Regional.
“I just think softball kind of has a funny way of shifting momentum,” redshirt senior Sharlize Palacios said. “I think at that moment last year, we just didn’t have the momentum. I don’t think it was anything more, anything less. I think this year, we’re in a really good spot.”
Inouye-Perez’s favorite part about coaching college sports is the natural progression. Juniors becoming seniors. Viewing each team as its own entity.
Despite the Bruins returning the majority of their starters, that theory is relevant. For example, Palacios, who missed the Los Angeles Regional last season due to a left hand injury, is available, healthy and peaking, just named the Pac-12 Tournament Most Valuable Player.
Then there’s the expectations surrounding this iteration of UCLA softball, which, Inouye-Perez says, couldn’t have been more dissimilar from ones of recent past.
But what separates this team from others is the Bruins have shed those expectations, overcome the many low points this season has offered, and are using it to fuel a postseason run.
UCLA started the season dropping three of its first five games. Starting pitchers Kaitlyn Terry and Taylor Tinsley were underclassmen searching for their flow. They found it just as the offense began to click, and that coalesced and led to 21 wins over the next 23 games.
“There’s no failure throughout the season because you’re just learning,” Inouye-Perez said.
The Bruins can relate.
Inouye-Perez said they’ve learned how to manage success and disappointment, prepare for different pitchers and adjust their defense to match the opponent.
UCLA has also earned the right to say it’s never out of any game until the final pitch.
“Continuing to have the belief that we’re going to get it done regardless of what’s going on,” outfielder Jadelyn Allchin said. “I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been a part of making it happen.”
Before transferring to UCLA from Washington in August, Allchin scored a run and had an RBI double as the Huskies completed the first six-run comeback in the NCAA Tournament since 2000.
She and the Bruins completed a similar feat last Friday in the Pac-12 Tournament semifinal when they scored six runs in the fifth inning to overcome Arizona’s four-run lead to advance to the final. Two weeks prior to that, they scored 11 unanswered runs over the fifth and sixth innings to erase a 7-0 Wildcats lead.
“I wasn’t really worried about that game,” Allchin said, scoffing at the margin. “I was like, ‘Seven runs, we got it.’”
That unabashed confidence stems from experiences, surging through those moments with her teammates. The Bruins have embraced what this season has thrown at them, recycling it into a profound trust of their teammates.
“I just want to play another seven innings with my girls,” Palacios said.
That’s the Bruins’ mindset heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Regionals consist of three games, three separate teams, the potential of facing 16 different pitchers. It’s a challenge unlike regular-season series against a singular ball club. Yet the trick is to treat it as such. And if the Bruins want to emerge out of the Los Angeles Regional, they’ll have to attack it in that way, in the same manner they do each time.
“Still keeping it simple to where we focus on this one game,” Allchin said. “The first game is most important, then we’ll move on to the next game.”
NCAA Softball Tournament, Los Angeles Regional
When: Friday
Where: Easton Field at UCLA
Game 1: Virginia Tech vs. San Diego State, 3 p.m. (ESPNU)
Game 2: No. 6 seed UCLA vs. Grand Canyon, 5:30 p.m. (ESPN+)
