Arizona largely struggled against Pac-12 aces this season, including UCLA's Rachel Garcia.
Although college softball has changed thoroughly since Arizona won its first NCAA championship in 1991 — better playing facilities, higher pay for coaches, more national exposure and a considerably deeper pool of available high school talent — pitching still rules the game as it did in ’91.
Arizona went 0-11 against the Pac-12’s current superpowers, UCLA, Oregon and Washington. Why? It couldn’t effectively hit the pitching aces at those schools: Oregon’s Megan Kleist, Washington’s Taron Alvelo and UCLA’s Rachel Garcia.
The numbers are extraordinary.
Those pitchers went 9-0 against Arizona with a 1.04 ERA, allowing just six runs. They struck out 81 Wildcats in 52 innings.
More daunting: all of them return next season.
If Mike Candrea’s 2019 club — which returns mostly intact — is to get to the World Series, it will have to climb from good to a much higher level in the pitching circle.
Get this: UA junior Taylor McQuillin, the 2015 Gatorade national softball player of the year, was 28-3 with a 1.03 ERA and 248 strikeouts in 198 innings when NOT pitching against UCLA, Oregon or Washington. She was almost unhittable.
But against the Ducks, Huskies and Bruins, McQuillin was 0-9 with a 7.14 ERA.
Candrea adds the top high school prospect in Arizona for the ’19 season, pitcher-hitter Marissa Schuld of Phoenix Pinnacle High School. Not to put any additional pressure on Schuld, but if she’s not immediately ready to pitch at a high-level in the Pac-12, it’s difficult to picture Arizona breaking an eight-year streak without reaching the Women’s College World Series.
Schuld went 33-2 her last two seasons, striking out 398 batters in 207 innings She also hit .574 with 16 home runs this season as Pinnacle won the Class 6A state title.
“She’s a bulldog,” Candrea said.
It’s getting more and more difficult to project – to guess – how elite high school pitchers will do once they get in a league as talent-rich at the Pac-12. Since 2012, Arizona has landed some of the top pitching prospects in the West: Shelby Babcock, Nancy Bowling, Michelle Floyd and Trish Parks.
None became an ace, or even close.
