AZTECS: ONE GAME AT A TIME
First up is Liberty, then SDSU will worry about what team will be next
San Diego State’s softball team will return to a familiar place today when it opens NCAA Regional play at Easton Stadium in Los Angeles.
The Aztecs (35-15) will face Liberty (38-20) in tonight’s playoff opener. Looming is UCLA, the tournament’s No. 2 overall seed and this weekend’s regional host. The Bruins (51-5) will face the Grand Canyon Antelopes (46-11) today as part of the three-day, double-elimination tournament.
SDSU squared off against the Bruins on May 5 in Los Angeles. Sophomore catcher Cali Decker hit a game-tying, threerun blast in the sixth inning before the Bruins’ Aaliyah Jordan, a Bonita Vista High School alum, hit a walk-off solo home run in the seventh.
San Diego State is 2-69 alltime against UCLA. This weekend marks the Aztecs’ sixth trip to UCLA for the NCAA Regionals, the most recent visit coming in 2015.
“I’ll be honest, going to UCLA is a little bit of a mixed bag,” said Stacey Nuveman Deniz, SDSU’s second-year head coach and a longtime assistant before that. “I think there was a little part of all of us
that was interested to maybe go somewhere different.
“At the same time, going to L.A. is great because it’s close. We don’t have crazy travel to get there. Our families and local fans can make the trek and get themselves up to L.A. relatively easy.”
Liberty comes into the double-elimination tournament as an at-large team from the Atlantic Sun Conference. The Flames are led by junior pitcher Karlie Keeney, who is 25-11 this season with 147 strikeouts in 44 appearances.
The Mountain West tournament champion Aztecs have been preparing for multiple pitchers, Deniz said.
“They have two really, really good pitchers,” Deniz said. “Both of them are mostly kind
of drop down, ball down in the zone. So, that’s been a focus of our preparation is working on that offensively.”
First pitch between the Aztecs and Flames is scheduled for 8 p.m. Today’s winners will play each other at 2 p.m. on Saturday; the losers will play an elimination game at 4:30.
The winner of the Los Angeles Regional will move on to next week’s best-of-three Super Regionals.
The eight teams that move on from the Super Regionals will advance to the Women’s College World Series, which will be played June 1-9 at the ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City.
Deniz said her team has to simplify things during this NCAA Tournament if it wants to advance. That means focusing on today’s game ... and not a potential rematch with the Bruins.
“We’re focused on beating Liberty. And after that, whoever is next, boom, next up, we’re gonna go 1-0 that day and we’re gonna go 1-0 the day after that,” Deniz said. “That kind of mindset of taking each day as its own battle, and the only battle that we have any control over is the one that we’re in.”
Perhaps no coach in the country is more familiar with UCLA than Deniz, a former Bruins catcher. Deniz finished her four-year career with four NCAA records for career home runs (90), slugging percentage (.945), walks (240) and intentional walks (81). She was a three-time Pac-10 Player of the Year and won a WCWS title (1999).
Deniz said she has mixed emotions when it comes facing her alma mater. They won’t take away from the Aztecs’ primary goal.
“Fortunately, I’ve done it a number of times, so some of that emotion has kind of subsided and I’m just about going up there and competing with my Aztec squad,” Deniz said. “There are lots of memories for me there, but our charge is to go in and play softball at a high level and make some noise. That’s really all we can control and what I’m focused on.”