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.
2010: UCLA stops Wildcats’ quest for ninth national title
What went down: Arizona made it back to the championship series, but fell in two straight games to UCLA. The Bruins topped the Wildcats 6-5 in eight innings, then clinched their 11th Women’s College World Series title with a 15-9 victory.
It would take Arizona nine years to get back to Oklahoma City.
The 2010 season marked the seventh time the UA and UCLA met in the finals but the first time since 2001, when Arizona won it all.
Just getting to the finals was an accomplishment. After dropping its opener to Tennessee 9-0 in five innings, Arizona won four elimination games in less than 30 hours. The Wildcats beat Washington and Hawaii, then topped Tennessee twice.
Freshman ace Kenzie Fowler was the workhorse, throwing 695 pitches in the WCWS. The Canyon del Oro High School graduate finished the season 38-9 and threw more than 4,000 pitches.
Fowler struck out 13 against Hawaii, which led the nation with 158 home runs, and pitched a no-hitter against Tennessee.
UCLA’s Megan Langenfeld won Game 1 of the finals with a walk-off home run in the eighth inning.
The Wildcats led 5-4 in the seventh, but a mental error — a fly ball that dropped between two UA outfielders — allowed the Bruins to tie it up.
In the second game, Langenfeld hit a two-run homer early and Arizona couldn’t catch up. The Bruins clubbed a record 19 hits.
Arizona’s Stacie Chambers hit three home runs against UCLA, two coming in the last game. She hit four in the WCWS to tie Langenfeld and UCLA’s Andrea Harrison for the most home runs in the tournament.
Four Wildcats — Fowler, K’Lee Arredondo, Karissa Buchanan and Brittany Lastrapes — made the all-tournament team.
From the archives: The Star’s Patrick Finley wrote that after winning four elimination games, the Wildcats didn’t have enough left — especially after giving away a win in Game 1 of the finals. Fowler, who had a remarkable run, couldn’t make it past the second inning. He added:
The first batter of the second inning, however, was Fowler’s last. … Rattled and weary from throwing 695 pitches over 33º innings since Saturday morning, Fowler was removed in favor of No. 2 starter Sarah Akamine, who had thrown only three innings in Oklahoma City.
Candrea said Fowler was flexing her troublesome right hand and losing feeling in it.
The Canyon Del Oro High School product said she was “exhausted … mentally and physically” after pitching seven games.
Asked the extent of her injury, she said, “it doesn’t matter now.”
A tearful Fowler spoke in curt sentences.
“As a team, we had to fight the whole tournament,” she said. “I’m not happy with myself. I couldn’t finish it.”
But Candrea wouldn’t let her blame herself.
“She’s thrown a bunch,” he said. “My God, this young lady has done a miraculous job to get us here. When she can’t feel the ball, it’s time (to come out).”
UA’s Sarah Akamine stepped in after Kenzie Fowler was taken out in the second inning of the Women’s College World Series clincher by UCLA.
She said it: In the 2007 WCWS, former UA ace Taryne Mowatt led her squad to the national championship while throwing 1,035 pitches over eight games. Mowatt watched Fowler’s games on TV and said she knew how the Wildcats’ ace felt.
“Watching it, I look at her face and I just think ‘She is putting on a fabulous mask of how tired she really is,’” Mowatt said.
After OKC: Fowler, Lastrapes and Lauren Schutzler didn’t have much time to rest. Less than a week later, they traveled to Canton, Ohio, where they trained for the Canadian Open as members of the USA Softball Women’s Futures National Team. Joining them were former Wildcat Jenea Leles and Tucson native Molly Johnson.
Lastrapes was tired for another reason. She played the second half of the season — including the WCWS — with mononucleosis. The left fielder, who finished 13 for 27, slept in the training room between the double headers on Saturday and Sunday.
The big number: 24. The 24 combined runs in the final game was a Women’s College World Series record. The previous mark was just 12.
