Editor’s note: This story appears in Sunday’s special section honoring retiring UA softball coach Mike Candrea.
OKLAHOMA CITY — Jody Pruitt dropped to her knees. Jenny Dalton tossed her globe high in the air. Amy Chellevold jumped up and down.
Outfielders Stacy Redondo, Jamie Heggen and Lisa Guise raced toward each other for a group hug.
Leah O’Brien charged out of the dugout.
Somebody screamed. Somebody else screamed.
Susie Parra was stunned.
Seconds earlier, she had thrown her 75th pitch of the game, what she considered a hittable riseball to UCLA’s JoaAnne Alchin.
Alchin watched it speed by.
“I was like, ‘Did the umpire call a strike?’” Parra said.
It was a strike. The third strike. The final out in the seventh inning.
The celebration could begin. The Arizona softball team had won the national championship.
The Wildcats needed only one hit yesterday to reclaim the Women’s College World Series title, beating UCLA 1-0 in front of 3,138 at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium.
It was the ultimate pitchers’ duel featuring a most fitting matchup. Arizona won the title over UCLA in 1991; the Bruins took it back in 1992, beating the UA.
Arizona and UCLA. Parra vs. Lisa Fernandez.
“I knew we were the best two teams,” Chellevold said.
“They’re the best pitchers in the country,” Pruitt said.
The Bruins blinked first
Chellevold led off the bottom of the first with a slow grounder that shortstop Kristy Howard threw away at first for an error. Heggen’s sacrifice bunt moved Chellevold to second, bringing up O’Brien.
With two strikes, she was looking to make contact, perhaps advancing the runner.
“She came in low,” O’Brien said. “I like that pitch.”
She lined it just over Fernandez’s head into center field. Chellevold churned around third. The throw came home.
“I knew it was going to be pretty close,” Chellevold said. “I was hoping she wasn’t going to be blocking the plate. I just slid straight through. It wasn’t anything special.”
Special enough to win a title.
Despite not getting another hit, the Wildcats played errorless ball and relied on the battery of Parra and Pruitt. No UCLA runner advanced past second base. Parra allowed two hits, striking out six and walking two. She punctuated the victory by striking out of the side in the seventh.
“I didn’t really expect to do that,” said Parra (28-3). “It was close.”
For UA coach Mike Candrea, it was sheer delight.
Minutes after winning the title, he took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair for the last time. He told his team earlier this month that he would shave his head if it won a national title. A promise is a promise.
And so after the UA posed for team pictures, after national champion T-shirts were distributed, after Candrea kissed Parra, the ceremony began.
Amid a cluster of players and parents behind home plate, Heggen made the first cut, using an electric shaver to take a clump of Candrea’s dark, curly hair.
“I woke up this morning and kept looking at my hair for some reason,” said Candrea, whose hat looks a little too large for his head now.
The seniors — Heggen, Guise, Pruitt and Redondo — completed the job, leaving the hair scattered on the grass in their field of dreams.
“This is for five years of hell, Coach,” Redondo said, laughing.
Arizona’s heavenly season ends at 44-8. The Bruins finished at 50-5.
Parra, a junior, was 4-1 in the Series, pitching 39 innings and allowing 17 hits and two runs, one earned. She struck out 51 and walked six, establishing herself as college’s premier pitcher, now that Fernandez has exhausted her eligibility.
Parra has repeatedly said she is unconcerned with the comparisons, that she just wanted to win the championship.
“She’s funny. She’s so damn team-oriented, it’s great. You’ll probably get another one like that,” Candrea said.
UCLA advanced to the title game by beating Southwestern Louisiana 1-0 in yesterday’s elimination game. Fernandez (33-3) threw a one-hitter in that game.
She couldn’t overcome the unearned run against Arizona.
“After we got that run, it was like the Susie Parra-Jody Pruitt show,” Candrea said. “Three outs at a time.”
When Parra struck out Jennifer Brewster in the seventh, there were two outs to go. When she struck out Jenae Deffenbaugh, there was one out to go. When she struck out of Alchin, it was all over.
National champions.
“It was just meant to be,” Candrea said.
