Here we go again.
Two years ago, the Arizona Wildcats defeated Ole Miss to advance to the Women’s College World Series. They’ll have to push past the Rebels again this weekend if they hope to advance past the NCAA Regionals.
Ole Miss (34-20, 12-12) returns to Tucson for this weekend’s playoffs in a different spot. The Rebels have a new coach, Jamie Traschel, and have lost four in a row.
This year’s team is laden with upperclassmen, however; Ole Miss’ 10 seniors and four juniors are sure to remember the 2019 super regional loss.
“I definitely expect some animosity,” said Arizona catcher Dejah Mulipola, who played in the 2019 series. “I’m sure some of those girls remember what that bitter feeling was like. They’re definitely going to come out and want to beat us.”
The 11-seeded Wildcats open regional play against UMBC at 5:30 p.m. Friday. Should they beat the Retrievers (25-11, 11-5) and likely star pitcher Courtney Coppersmith, who is 19-2 with a 0.65 ERA, they will face the winner of Villanova (36-13, 15-2) and Ole Miss at 2 p.m. Saturday. Win that game, and Arizona will advance to Sunday evening’s regional final.
Candrea’s Wildcats lost three of four to No. 2 UCLA last weekend, cementing a fifth-place finish in the Pac-12 standings and the 11th overall seed in the tournament. Arizona led all Pac-12 teams in batting average (.321), and was second in hits (403), home runs (83) and RBIs (295).
However, their biggest offensive star has been struggling of late. Shortstop Jessie Harper, who was named the Pac-12 Scholar Athlete of the Year for softball on Wednesday, went 2 for 11 with six strikeouts last weekend. Candrea said Harper’s struggles — she has 13 home runs this season after belting 29 in 2019, the last time Arizona and Ole Miss played — are the result of her reacting too quickly.
“When your eyes are not working well in this game, it’s hard to hit,” Candrea said. “I can tell, most of the time, when Jess is making decisions really early and therefore going to chase some bad pitches. When she’s making decisions at the right time, then she will have a tendency to lay off those pitches. It’s not just Jessie but all of our hitters; we sometimes cheat too much.”
Arizona and Jessie Harper last played Ole Miss during the 2019 NCAA Super Regionals at Hillenbrand Stadium, with the Wildcats winning and advancing to the Women’s College World Series.
The Wildcats will need to get more from pitchers Mariah Lopez, Alyssa Denham and Hanah Bowen if they hope to make a playoff push. The UA’s pitchers posted a 2.22 team ERA during the regular season, but the figure jumped to 3.01 in games against Pac-12 foes. Arizona allowed 28 runs over the last two weekends of the regular season while going 3-5 overall and 1-5 in league play. By comparison, it allowed 36 runs in all of April — a month that included 17 games.
There’s nothing rare about pairing of two teams with history against each other in the regionals. The NCAA selection committee seems to enjoy setting up matchups with underlying storylines.
Oregon is headed to 12th-seeded Texas’ regional three years after Ducks coach Mike White left to take over the Longhorns’ program. Melyssa Lombardi now leads the Ducks, who finished the season ranked No. 15 in the RPI.
It should be no surprise, then, that Ole Miss is coming back to Tucson.
“It bothers the hell out of me, because I don’t think that’s the purpose of this tournament,” coach Mike Candrea said. “If you take a look at Oregon going to Texas, there’s a humanistic element that if I was a committee member, I would be talking about. That’s tough. We always talk about student welfare, or doing everything for the student-athlete experience, that wasn’t a really good decision for those athletes.
“It’s going to be tough for them to play their former coach and some of their former teammates.”
