UCLA softball coach Kelly Inouye-Perez calls it “Bruin armor.” It’s the team’s ability to walk with their heads high even when its confidence is shaken underneath it all.
It’s a constant characteristic season after season, but if that armor were to be pierced as No. 2 UCLA heads into the postseason, the Bruins could carry on because of the depth of this year’s team.
“This feels like UCLA softball,” Inouye-Perez said. “I can’t really remember the last time it’s gotten to be to this much depth or the freshmen have been this impactful.”
The Bruins have rode that depth to a 23-game winning streak heading into the inaugural Pac-12 Tournament, which is slated to begin Wednesday and end Saturday at Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium in Tucson, Arizona.
UCLA enters the tournament as the No. 1 seed and will have their first game Thursday after a first-round bye. The Bruins will face either No. 8 Arizona or No. 9 Arizona State at 4 p.m. All tournament games will be shown on Pac-12 Network, with the championship game on ESPN2.
As a team, UCLA owns the best batting average in the conference at .345 and three players – Maya Brady and freshmen Jordan Woolery and Kennedy Powell – are hitting above .400.
“It’s super powerful,” Brady said of the deep hitting. “It allows everybody to just kind of be who they are and not kind of make up their own story of ‘Oh, I have to do more because I don’t really have the team behind me or anybody really having my back.’”
Brady, a redshirt junior, was crowned the Pac-12 batting champion with her .456 average. She’s in the running for USA Softball Player of the Year as a top 10 finalist. Her 16 home runs and 56 RBI rank second in the conference.
Freshman Megan Grant has assumed the leadoff spot in the batting order and has combined with Woolery for the most RBI in a season by two freshmen in program history. Grant has 54 RBI and Woolery has 45.
The contributions of the freshman class go beyond numbers, however. Brady can remember a practice earlier this season at which the coaching staff asked who among the players thought they were a leader. Nearly all the freshmen raised their hands.
“It was their first day, we were all like, ‘OK, jeez,’” Brady recalled. “Their renewed energy has really sparked something in all of us returners.
“You can get caught up in kind of the ‘Oh it’s another season, it’s another tournament.’ Seeing them so excited and like so hyped to play in those environments that they’ve watched for four years on TV has really gave us new purpose.”
Inouye-Perez has already called freshman pitcher Taylor Tinsley “the future” of UCLA softball, and she’s been absorbing knowledge from Megan Faraimo, another top 10 finalist for USA Softball Player of the Year.
Faraimo has reached 100 career wins in her redshirt-senior season and, at 28-2, is the winningest pitcher in the Pac-12 with a 1.11 ERA and 215 strikeouts. Two other UCLA pitchers are among the top 5 lowest ERAs in the conference in Tinsley (1.47) and Brooke Yanez (2.02), a sixth-year senior who transferred from Oregon.
“She’s the heartbeat of the program,” Inouye-Perez said of Faraimo. “This year I wanted her to focus a little bit more herself instead of focusing on everyone else. That’s not an easy task for her. It feels selfish to her, but she has found a way to manage both.”
The Bruins have the opportunity to put their depth to the test in the Pac-12 tournament. The single-elimination format creates a heightened sense of urgency, as opposed to the Women’s College World Series that offers three-game series.
“Everyone on the team has a role,” Woolery said, “whether you’re cheering the loudest or getting the biggest hit. Everyone has a place on the team and I think that’s why we’re doing so good this year because everyone’s really finding their role and embracing what they’re bringing to the team.”
UCLA at Pac-12 tournament
When: Thursday, 4 p.m.
Where: Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium, Tucson, Arizona.
TV: Pac-12 Networks
