Editor’s note: For more than three decades, the UA has been one of college softball’s best teams, making 23 Women’s College World Series appearances and winning eight national championships. The Star is re-living each of the WCWS trips.
1995: Wildcats robbed of a three-peat as UCLA uses ringer to take back title
What went down: The Arizona Wildcats tore through the Women’s College World Series, rolling into the title game poised to win their third straight crown.
They were so dominant in all aspects that they only gave up one run and didn’t play a full seven-inning game until the title game. They smoked Princeton 9-1 in five innings, Cal State Fullerton 11-0 in four and UNLV 8-0 in six.
Then they ran into UCLA’s ace Tanya Harding — a ringer. The Australian ace helped the Bruins beat the Wildcats 4-2, then left school without taking a final exam or completing one credit in her three classes.
Harding enrolled at UCLA in mid-March. In the span of 64 days, she went 17-1. She pitched four complete games in the WCWS, giving up eight hits, striking out four and walking one with a 0.75 ERA. She also hit .500.
It took two years for the NCAA to punish UCLA. The Bruins forfeited the title but are still listed in the record books as the winner — with an asterisk.
The title game was a back-and-forth affair. Arizona took the lead in the second inning only to allow UCLA to score twice in the bottom half following an error by Jenny Dalton and a misplayed fly ball by Brandi Shriver. Leah O’Brien’s two-out single in the fifth tied the game at 2-2. The Bruins came right back as a batter reached on another error followed by Kelly Howard’s home run over the right-field fence to clinch it.
Five Wildcats — O’Brien, Shriver, Leah Braatz and Alison Johnsen — made the all-tournament team.
From the archives: The Star’s Anthony Gimino wrote that the Wildcats were shut down with errors and the bats of the heart of the order – Dalton, Espinoza and Braatz. He wrote:
Coming in as the best defensive team in the country — it had a fielding percentage of .979 — the UA committed two untimely errors and misplayed a fly ball that allowed two runs to score.
“I just can’t believe we lost that game,” said UA first baseman Amy Chellevold. “We gave it to them. We made defensive mistakes that killed us. That’s all it took.”
It also took some high-pressure pitching from Tanya Harding. She never solved the UA’s let-handed batters, who had seven of the team’s eight hits, but was responsible for the UA’s power outage in the middle of the order. She was almost always ahead in the count and consistently threw her changeup for strikes.
… Facing the top three home run hitters in the country, Harding completed her version of the great escape — striking out Jenny Dalton, Laura Espinoza and Leah Braatz.
“To win a national championship, you have to execute perfectly, and I just don’t think we did that,” Candrea said. “That’s part of the game. It happens.”
She said it: ‘We beat the team that everyone said was unbeatable on this day. That’s the sweetness of this victory.” — UCLA co-coach Sue Enquist
After OKC: Espinoza, who played shortstop, was named the 1995 Pac-10 Player of the Year. Sports Illustrated called her the Sultana of Swat. She hit an NCAA-record 37 home runs in her senior year.
Espinoza struck out only 16 times and had a 1.004 slugging percentage, second only to Lovie Jung’s 1.022 in 2003. She finished her career as a two-time All-American and two-time national champion.
Espinoza played professional baseball for the Colorado Silver Bullets and coached high school (Banning, Empire and Amphi) and college (Loyola Marymount) softball.
She married UA offensive lineman David Watson. Their son David, Jr., is also a Wildcat lineman, while their daughter, Kristiana will play softball this year at ASU.
The big number: 90.6. Chellevold and Espinoza won 90.6% of their games during their four years at Arizona.
