When Rylee Pierce decided to transfer to the UA from Missouri, Wildcats coach Mike Candrea was excited. That she did it relatively early was a bonus.
Candrea watched last season as Aleah Craighton and Alyssa Denham, both transfers from Louisiana-Lafayette, adjusted to their new surroundings. They arrived in January, just in time for practices.
Pierce showed up over the summer, a move that gave the senior first baseman time to bond with her new teammates.
Pierce, who went 5 for 7 with a home run and two doubles last week during the Wildcats’ sweep against Oregon, will travel with Arizona to Oregon State for a weekend series that starts Friday night. She’s hitting .271 with two home runs and five RBIs. When asked about what inspired the turnaround performance at the plate, Pierce was honest.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Hitting is just a weird thing. Sometimes things go well, sometimes things don’t.”
During her three years at Missouri, Pierce hit .306 with 24 home runs and 76 RBIs. With numbers like that, Pierce was expected to find her role in Arizona’s lineup fairly quickly.
Instead, Pierce struggled at the start of the season. She went hitless in the Wildcats’ first six games.
“She’s just a very hard worker, very passionate about the game,” Candrea said. “There’s nothing that you wouldn’t like about the kid. I think, early on, she was probably trying too hard. A lot of times, when you get someone in a new situation, they try to make sure that everyone knows they belong. I think she’s trying to find her own identity and playing the game.”
Now, it seems Pierce has settled into her new role at Arizona. It hasn’t come easy: She was hit by a pitch and injured in the first game of a March 5 doubleheader against New Mexico State. Pierce, who said she can normally shake off HBPs, couldn’t even make it to first base. The pain in her right wrist — her throwing hand — was unbearable.
“It was pretty painful,” she said.
Luckily for Pierce, an X-ray confirmed that there were no broken bones. She would miss just two games — the back end of the New Mexico State doubleheader and the Florida State series opener — before coming back to the field.
It’s that toughness and dedication that makes Pierce a popular teammate.
Alyssa Palomino-Cardoza said she knew instantly the Missouri transfer would fit in with the team. Pierce immediately became good friends with Palomino-Cardoza and pitchers Taylor McQuillin and Gina Snyder, some of the team’s more senior players.
“We’re really lucky to have her,” Palomino-Cardoza said. “She’s a constant leader and he most level-headed to keep us grounded, so she’s lots of fun to be around.”
Pierce said she’s enjoyed her time in Tucson, and is grateful to be part of a program that is so well-respected.
“Beyond Coach, you can just see all the people that surround the program have a common goal,” Pierce said. “They all work the hardest in their roles so it can be a great program. It’s just amazing all the details that go into making a program, I feel like here, they just cover all of them. Each person covers their role the best. It’s just really cool to see how hard everyone works around us.”
Inside pitch
Arizona is the only team with three players with 10 or more home runs at this point in the season. Dejah Mulipola and Jessie Harper lead the Pac-12 with 13 home runs, while Palomino-Cardoza has 10.
The accomplishment has inspired a new nickname for them: “Hillenbrand Bomb3rs.”
“We’re just out, having fun, hitting bombs,” Palomino-Cardoza said. “If you want to call us that, then there’s nothing we can do about it.
“We’re just having fun and feeding off energy from each other.”
