The Arizona Wildcats dejectedly walked off the field on Feb. 25. They had just lost 1-0 to No. 1 ranked Florida State in a game that felt more like the playoffs than an early season tournament game in Palm Springs, California.
For a team with legitimate championship aspirations, a loss to another contender hurt.
It also helped, apparently. Arizona has won 22 games in a row since that game, outscoring its competition by a ratio of more than 7 to 1. The Wildcats (37-1) will host Stanford in a three-game series starting Friday night at Hillenbrand Stadium.
UA coach Mike Candrea won’t pinpoint the Florida State loss for his team’s rally, but noted that there’s something different — and special — about his team.
The UA sits at No. 4 in the latest USA Today/NFCA Coaches Poll, behind top-ranked Florida State, Oregon and Florida. Arizona is No. 1 nationally in RPI, the rating used to determine NCAA Tournament seeding; Oregon is No. 2 and Florida State is sixth.
“Every game is important to us,” Candrea said. “I’m not going to identify one game as being more important then the others. But they don’t like losing. Whether it was Florida State or something else, I saw the look on their face after that game and it was a look of determination. They’re learning from those opportunities.”
Arizona has outscored its opponents 153-20 during its 22-game streak. The Wildcats beat No. 9 Oklahoma in a nonconference game and swept 10th-ranked Washington.
Ace Danielle O’Toole is 11-0 with a 0.98 ERA during that stretch. Taylor McQuillin has been even better, if that’s possible, posting a 9-0 record with a 0.54 ERA.
Freshman Jessie Harper is now tied for the Pac-12 lead with 12 home runs, eight of them coming in the 22 games following the Florida State loss. She’s hitting .400 during that stretch.
Alyssa Palomino, a redshirt freshman, leads the Pac-12 with 42 RBIs, 22 of them coming during the streak. Outfielder Mandie Perez has scored 26 runs in the same time frame.
Arizona is showing no signs of slowing down. The Wildcats lead the nation in home runs (56) and runs scored (298), and rank first in the Pac-12 with a 0.84 team ERA.
Florida State “was a big growing game for us,” said shortstop Mo Mercado, who leads the team with a .398 average.
“We didn’t look defeated or upset, we looked like we fell short and we knew it, but we were ready to get after it this week and we know we’re going to be in games like that in the future,” she said. “So it was definitely a learning experience.”
Candrea said the Wildcats’ season could’ve gone one of two ways.
“If you win it, sometimes those teams think, well, you’ve arrived, you’re good. Or you get beat and you use it as motivation to say, we’re right there and we know what we need to do to beat a team of that caliber,” he said.
“I think we are a team of that caliber.”
