Caitlin Lowe impressed with Wildcats' competitiveness entering Pac-12 home opener

The No. 17 Arizona softball team, coming off a series win against Arizona State and a sweep of New Mexico State, has been feeling loose and competing.

“They're having fun competing, they're making it about beating somebody and not trying to be perfect themselves,” UA coach Caitlin Lowe said. “I think when you are competing against a pitcher and just trying to figure out what her next move is, it takes a lot of pressure off of your shoulders as a hitter.”

Wednesday night, Arizona (19-7, 2-1 Pac-12) had a back-to-back against New Mexico State where both games went only five innings with final scores of 10-0 and 9-1. The Wildcats had their bats going, with five home runs, two of them coming from sophomore outfielder Paige Dimler in the first game.

The Wildcats' attention turns to another three-game Pac-12 series this weekend against Utah Friday-Sunday at Hillenbrand Stadium.

Arizona leads the league in multiple offensive categories, including runs, hits, batting average and on-base percentage. Junior infielder Carlie Scupin has a team-high nine home runs.

“I think her approach has been really good at the plate — she’s not trying to do too much,” Lowe said. “Just has been consistent in the approach, what she wants to swing at, is OK (with) swinging strikes to get to where she needs to get to. Not just her but our whole team does a good job at communicating amongst each other to learn, to move onto the next at-bat.”

The freshmen have impressed Lowe with their way of responding when they fail at times. Olivia DiNardo leads the team in batting average (.492) and on-base percentage (.577). Tayler Biehl is batting .366.

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“The freshmen have really surprised me in a lot of ways, their composure at the plate, defensively, their rebound rate of bouncing back from failure is a really big deal,” Lowe said. “The biggest thing, though, is they are playing for each other; they're playing because this game is fun and they love competing. There’s not a lot of stuff that goes on, on the outside, that’s affecting us on the field.”

Freshman pitcher Aissa Silva, who is still 17, got the opportunity to start against ASU last weekend. She pitched 5⅓ innings and gave up no runs in Saturday's series-clinching 11-0 victory.

“I was really nervous actually, because it was my first conference game," Silva said. "It’s ASU, I’m from Arizona, I want to beat them — like, I wanted that game.”

Silva isn’t the only freshman pitcher to impress Lowe as Sydney Somerndike has pitched 29.2 innings while posting a 2.12 ERA.

“Big competitors, they want the ball in their hand and they want to go right at people,” Lowe said. “Just students of the game too, you can have a conversation with them, where this is what I saw happening during the game, we wanted you to come in and attack this part of the zone. They love that. That makes them better, because they understand the game so well.”