Fifth-year senior Izzy Pacho reaches her goal of leaving her legacy on UA softball program

Sunday will be bittersweet for the UA softball team, as it is every time Senior Day rolls around.

Some years, the celebration of the seniors hits everyone a little harder.

This is one of those years as Izzy Pacho — the local girl who grew up before our eyes over five years — is among the three who will be playing in what will be their final games at Rita Hillenbrand Stadium over the next week.

Pacho is not the only one with local ties wrapping up their collegiate softball careers. Breezy Hardy is from Sierra Vista Buena High School, and Ali Ashner was a Wildcat as a freshman before transferring out and returning this season.

Each one has taken a different route to this moment, and they have all touched the program — and UA coach Caitlin Lowe — in their own ways

“It’s crazy. They’ve each had a different story here,” Lowe said. “… I can’t thank them enough for what they’ve done and just excited for them to get them more games.”

That starts with the important games this weekend — the final series of the regular season.

Arizona (27-22, 5-16 Pac-12) hosts Cal (31-27-1, 7-13-1) starting Friday at 7 p.m. at Hillenbrand. All three games will be televised on Pac-12 Networks.

UA will also host the Pac-12 Tournament beginning Wednesday.

Arizona is coming off its first Pac-12 series win since the opening weekend of league play against ASU. The Wildcats ended their 14-game conference losing streak against Oregon State last weekend and jumped from last place to seventh.

If UA sweeps the Golden Bears, it will jump to the No. 6 seed for the Pac-12 Tournament. The Wildcats win need at least one win — and maybe two — this weekend to avoid the play-in game between the No. 8 and No. 9 seed Wednesday.

Lowe walked through each of her seniors, and the biggest takeaway is the women they become.

“Izzy feels like she’s been on the team for 20 years just because we’ve seen her camps all growing up,” Lowe said. “Just a special human, a special person that will truly just through and through be a Wildcat for forever and cheer for this team and just such a great heart about her. Obviously, great athletic tools as well, but I just can’t say enough about her as a person and what she’s done for this program and leadership-wise, as well as athletically.

“Ali Ashner, I think is one of the coolest stories ever. One of our walk-ons when she was a freshman and when you jump to this level, it’s crazy and fast and hard. I remember Coach Candrea talking to her and telling her to go somewhere where she could start and play, and she’s done nothing but get better. … Talk about attitude and just selflessness and buying into her role. They call her captain on the team, and she fires them up before every game. She’s a special person, and (I’m) grateful for her coming back this year and man, she can swing it off the bench and comes off the bench with the calm heartbeat and just so happy that we cross paths again.

“Breezy, man, such the competitor. I told her, I think at Oregon, ‘when you came in and pitched against us in the fall (of 2021). It’s like, you see people come in and really look at the name across the front of your chest and then she came in and shoved it. She was just like I’m going to go right at them.’ Just that quiet confidence and she’s got this swagger about her but then when you get to talk to her, she’s just the nicest person.”

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Overcoming adversity

For Asher, her senior year is a full-circle moment. She tore her ACL as a senior in high school and came to Tucson from Chandler Hamilton High School. In her freshman year, she had a few more surgeries and started rehab. After some time, she returned to the diamond for South Mountain Community College in 2020 and was one of the top players in the league. She moved on to Phoenix College and won back-to-back NJCAA DII Championships and collected Division II ACCAC Player of the Year and NFCA/Schutt NJCAA DII Player of the Year honors in those two seasons. Her teammate on those title teams was Hardy.

“I dealt with a lot of adversity with my knee, so when I had the opportunity to come back, I wanted to make the most out of it and enjoy every second of it,” Ashner said. “I have and I love this team and I love this program. … It’s very meaningful that I was able to come back and play (with Pacho) and represent the university. A lot of emotions.”

Hardy, who transferred to Arizona along with Ashner in the fall after winning two titles, back-to-back Pitcher of the Year honors and picked up a Player of the Year honor, as well. She posted these career numbers at Phoenix College: 119-3 record, 1,217 strikeouts, and a 1.17 ERA.

At UA, she has had 13 appearances in relief, pitching 12 innings and going 1-1. She has a 4.08 ERA with 11 strikeouts.

Pacho, an Ironwood Ridge High graduate, said she is fulfilled and that, “From the first time I stepped on campus, I wanted to make a name for myself and leave this place better than I found it and I feel like I did.”

The NFCA All-West Region first-teamer has experienced so much during her five years as a Wildcat, including three Women’s College Softball World Series.

Last season she had a breakout year at third base. She provided highlight-reel catches during the Wildcats’ run to the World Series, finishing with a .959 fielding percentage.

Her offensive skills shined with a slash line of .360/.425/.629, hitting 11 home runs — including the game-winner against Mississippi State in the Super Regionals — and driving in 37 runs.

This season she was behind the plate for the first part of the season before taking a two-week mental health break. On teammate Allie Skaggs’ new podcast, “The things they don’t see,” which focuses on mental health and college athletics, Pacho shared that she felt she didn’t feel like she had the fight left in her to push through. This feeling started after the ASU series.

On Tuesday, Pacho said, “I reached a point past my breaking point and was just overwhelmed with everything — everything softball related.”

“I just didn’t have a lot of juice left. “Taking those two weeks, I was able to find peace and know that I finally experienced love outside of the sport — other than my family. I think that was a big thing for me, was Izzy Pacho is not just a softball player. She’s someone outside of softball, and I felt the love from everybody in my life. From fans, from my teammates, from people who I haven’t talked to in years saying, ‘Hey, are you OK?’ I was just reminded that we are all humans and this is just a game.”

The smile is back on Pacho’s face as she is back in her UA uniform for this last stretch and with the teammates who she said she wishes she would have played all five years with and “I am 100% in, ready to compete and ready to go make a run at the World Series again.”

“… I feel like I have had so much support and love that I can fully say that I love Izzy Pacho and whatever I’m going to do in life, I’m going to be successful at it. I’m just I’m happy to be here. And it’s going to be sad to leave but I won’t be gone forever,” Pacho said.