Disrupting the norm will have to wait until Game 2 of supers, at least, for UCF’s softball team.
No. 8 UCLA, the nation’s highest-scoring offense, belted another three home runs in a 9-1 victory on May 22 to open the best-of-three Los Angeles Super Regional in the NCAA Tournament. Bri Alejandre, Kaniya Bragg and Rylee Slimp went deep for the Bruins (51-8), who plated six runs in the fifth inning to win via mercy rule.
Megan Grant, the Division I home run leader with 40, walked in all three of her plate appearances. Taylor Tinsley pitched a three-hitter for the Bruins, though Sierra Humphreys tagged a towering home run to bust up the shutout effort.
UCF (41-18-1) will have its season on the line when it returns to Easton Stadium for Saturday’s 10 p.m. first pitch.
“We’re going to be feisty, we’re going to be chippy tomorrow,” Knights coach Cindy Ball-Malone said. “They’re going to have to beat us.”
Here are three takeaways from Game 1, which quickly got out of hand when UCF’s pitchers lost command.
UCLA punishes UCF pitching for free passes
Freshman Ava Stuewe largely held the nation’s highest-scoring lineup in check through three innings, though Bri Alejandre tagged her for a solo home run to break the ice.
However, Stuewe departed in the fourth after walking Alejandre and plunking Bragg. Isabella Vega entered to control the damage and got the desired ground ball from Soo-Jin Berry, but Humphreys’ only play was a hesitated toss to first.
Vega got ahead in the count 0-2 on Suarez, who half-swung at a couple of riseballs. But Suarez fouled off a pair of strikes, worked the count full and pulled a backbreaking double just inside the line in left.
UCLA chased Vega in the fifth, again cashing in when gifted baserunners. Vega hit the first two Bruins she faced, and Bragg turned on a riseball for a three-run homer to break the game open.
Slimp ended it four batters later, sitting on a changeup from reliever Macy Miles and belting it well over the right-field wall.
“That was quite a game until that last inning,” Ball-Malone said. “That’s what this team does, especially when you give them so many freebies.”
Southern California native Sierra Humphreys homers for UCF
Humphreys, one of four UCF starters hailing from California, took away at least one run from UCLA in the fourth with a diving catch behind second base. Moments later, she put the Knights on the board.
The sophomore launched a solo home run off Tinsley to lead off the fifth, her 14th of the season and third in the month of May.
Humphreys grew up about an hour east of Los Angeles in Corona. Her mom, Krista, is the head coach at Centennial High School — Sierra’s alma mater — and a three-time national champion at Arizona.
“It was obviously a full-circle moment,” Humphreys said. “It gave us all a lot to play for because I’m not the only one from California; I know Coach Bear (Ball-Malone) is, too. It gave us another reason and something bigger to play for. At the end of the day, it’s just a game and we were playing for each other and something bigger than ourselves.”
Aubrey Evans and Ashleigh Griffin provided the other hits for UCF. Tinsley retired the first nine Knights in order to begin the game.
UCF faces historically long odds to advance to WCWS
Ball-Malone called UCLA “giants” before the Knights departed Orlando. No program has won more national championships or reached more Women’s College World Series than the Bruins.
UCF, by contrast, has only qualified for supers twice and is looking to become the 14th unseeded team since 2005 to make it to Oklahoma City. Mississippi State and Arizona State, also unseeded, prevailed Friday — against pre-tournament favorite Oklahoma and defending champ Texas, respectively.
Falling behind in the best-of-three series, however, only makes UCF’s task that much more historically difficult. Of the 160 previous super regionals, roughly 79% of Game 1 winners have advanced.
“Regardless of what everybody says on paper, they want to go after it. They want to go to the World Series too,” Ball-Malone said. “It’s going to be a tall task, but I want to see them fight. We’ll take it one pitch at a time, but anything can happen.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF Knights softball takeaways from Game 1 super regional loss to UCLA