One mistake is all it takes to end Bruins’ run
Rachel Garcia paced around the circle, adjusted her pants and grinned wryly. Pitching hours after an unusual, draining game earlier Saturday, with UCLA’s season on the line, Garcia had been asked to throw another 101 pitches.
And UCLA’s second elimination game of the day had turned into a battle. Garcia’s counterpart, Washington’s Taran Alvelo, would also throw 101 pitches.
Garcia struck out seven. Alvelo did too. Each faced 26 batters.
But Garcia had just made the one mistake that would separate the two in UCLA’s 1-0 loss, which knocked the Bruins from the Women’s College World Series. It was a rise ball in the sixth inning. It caught too much of the plate. And it was up.
Ali Aguilar punished it high and far out into the Oklahoma City dusk, a 273-foot moonshot, for the game’s only run.
“It came down to just one pitch,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “And I believe we definitely could have figured out a way to make an adjustment a little sooner.”
Garcia, named the freshman of the year by the National Fastpitch Coaches Assn., pitched 13 innings total on Saturday. She gave up one run against Washington and one run in a fiery 8-2 victory over Texas A&M, in which she also hit a two-run home run. Delaney Spaulding also had three RBIs, and Kylee Perez had two.
UCLA won the game easily, but lost first-base coach Lisa Fernandez, who was ejected after arguing for an obstruction call on a play at the plate that injured UCLA’s left fielder, Gabrielle Maurice. Fernandez was also given an automatic two-game suspension, which will extend into next season’s opener, for bumping the plate umpire.
Afterward, Inouye-Perez tried to steady her team before the Bruins played Washington hours later.
“The game is testing us, like we knew,” Inouye-Perez told the players in the locker room. “We didn’t know it would get this crazy, and out of hand. But I think the best part about it is how you guys respond.”
At her news conference, Inouye-Perez said of the ejection, “It’s not something that I really want at this point, but once again, that’s one thing you’re learning about our program is we will definitely have each other’s backs.”
Bruins fans in Oklahoma City rushed to print special Tshirts with Fernandez’s photo, some scribbled with #FreeTheGOAT, referring to Fernandez.
Fernandez watched the Bruins play Washington from the stands. Student manager Ty Gibson coached first.
But UCLA’s offense disappeared, managing just two hits. They advanced only two runners into scoring position.
UCLA had faced Alvelo twice before, and scored a combined nine runs. But Alvelo dominated this time.
The Bruins had their best chance in the fourth inning, when they put a runner on third with one out. After a strikeout, Maurice, with visible bruising on her chin and forehead, had a chance to break the stalemate.
She caught the ball on the barrel. But the line drive went right to the third baseman, ending the danger.
Helfand reported from Los Angeles.