Bruins win wild softball opener
After Garcia gives up career-high 11 hits and seven runs, Jelenicki hits run-scoring single.
UCLA rallies in the seventh and 10th innings and beats Mississippi 8-7 in 11th at super regional.
It was one of the roughest outings of Rachel Garcia’s career and perhaps her most gratifying.
The UCLA redshirt freshman set a career worst for hits given up and tied another for runs given up Thursday night at Easton Stadium and none of it mattered after she gutted out 232 pitches and sparked an improbable bases-empty, two-out rally during the Bruins’ 8-7 victory in 11 innings over Mississippi in an NCAA tournament softball super regional opener.
UCLA prevailed after Madeline Jelenicki, who had hit into a double play the previous inning, slapped a runscoring single past first baseman Alyssa Gonzalez with two out to score Zoe Shaw from second base. The Bruins poured out of the dugout to celebrate a triumph that seemed unlikely only minutes earlier.
“We just wanted to get it done for Rachel, give her some rest,” Jelenicki said. “She kept us in the game.”
Garcia had triggered a two-run rally in the 10th when she singled with the bases empty and two out. Gabrielle Maurice followed with a single up the middle before Bubba Nickles hammered a two-run double to right field to tie the score.
UCLA (46-13) could advance to a third consecutive Women’s College World Series with a victory on Friday evening over the Rebels (43-19) in the second game of the bestof-three series.
After holding the Rebels scoreless and without a hit through the first five innings, Garcia gave up 11 hits and seven runs over the final six innings as UCLA failed to hold a 4-0 lead. Garcia’s pitch count also easily topped her previous career high of 129.
“It was definitely all about the mental toughness,” Garcia said, after lasting the duration of a game that took 4 hours 5 minutes.
The heavy workload left the availability of the Bruins’ ace in question for a game Saturday, if one is needed, though UCLA coach Kelly InouyePerez said it would be “all hands on deck.”
Needing a run to tie the score in the seventh inning, UCLA put a baserunner on second with nobody out after Delaney Spaulding singled to right field and advanced on a wild pitch. She eventually reached third base on a groundout, but the Bruins were down to their last strike when a wild pitch skipped away from Mississippi catcher Courtney Syrett. Spaulding sprinted toward home and scored just ahead of the throw.
Spaulding finished with three of UCLA’s 14 hits and rallied her teammates with some rousing words in a huddle.
“I had a great deal of confidence once I heard that,” Inouye-Perez said. “I think that is what creates confidence in why Bruin magic happens is because it’s part of our program.”
Garcia (21-7) entered the sixth inning having given up only three walks and two hit batters. The Rebels would get six hits, a walk and a hit batter in that inning to surge ahead, 5-4. The big blows came on Brittany Finney’s monstrous two-run homer to left-center and Gonzalez’s two-run single on a full count. Another run scored on a wild pitch.
Garcia had given herself a 1-0 lead with a home run to straightaway center field leading off the bottom of the second inning and received some insurance when the Bruins added three runs in the third.