Against all teams except Arizona, UCLA went 62-3 in the 2001 college softball season. The Bruins opened the season ranked No. 1 and had the most imposing lineup in the game:
Three future Olympic gold medalists became All-Americans: Stacey Nuveman hit .445 with 19 home runs, Tucsonan Tairia Mims hit .379 with 17 homers and Natasha Watley hit .442 with an NCAA-leading 56 stolen bases.
And yet the Bruins went 0-3 against Arizona pitcher Jennie Finch.
In the championship game of the Womenβs College World Series, Arizona led the Bruins in a tense 1-0 game with Mims and Nuveman leading off the sixth inning. Finch didnβt yield a hit. In fact, Mims and Nuveman went 0 for 13 against Finch at the WCWS.
No one beat Finch that season. She went 32-0, the singular pitching performance in womenβs college softball history.
βThis was the perfect end to a perfect season,β Finch said after the Wildcats beat the Bruins 1-0 in Oklahoma City to produce coach Mike Candreaβs sixth NCAA championship at Arizona.
The β01 Wildcats set an NCAA record with 67 victories. They went 37-0 at Hillenbrand Stadium and 31-2 against Top-25 opponents. Finch was Shohei Ohtani before anyone knew who Shohei Ohtani was. In addition to her 32-0 pitching record, she hit .313 with 11 home runs and 57 RBIs, which included three grand slams.
βEvery season, weβre supposed to win,β said UA All-American third baseman Toni Mascarenas. βItβs a lot of pressure, but thereβs nothing sweeter when it all comes true.β
What made Arizonaβs 2001 season so unique was that it won the World Series even though All-Americans Lauren Bauer, the leadoff hitter, Leneah Manuma, the cleanup hitter, went a combined 0 for 21.
βThatβs what was so special about this team,β said Candrea. βThis team won in so many different ways, whether it was great pitching or great hitting and good defense. We always found a way. The key thing was they never beat themselves.β
Itβs difficult, perhaps impossible, to say which of Candreaβs eight national championship teams was best, but when your No. 1 pitcher, Finch, goes 32-0 with an 0.54 ERA β running her winning streak to 40 games β itβs crazy not to pick the β01 Wildcats.
Or consider this: Arizonaβs No. 2 pitcher, Becky Lemke, went 19-2 in 2001. She wouldβve been the No. 1 starter for probably every other team in college softball. Lemke was so good that Candrea started her in the WCWS semifinals against the best team in Stanford history, a 54-win squad that included All-American outfielder Jessica Mendoza.
Lemke beat the Cardinal 1-0 with a one-hitter as Mascarenas hit her second game-winning home run of the 2001 World Series.
Lemke struck out 204 batters in 144 innings in 2001, allowing just 72 hits. Yet she paled next to Finch, who struck out 279 batters and allowed just 19 runs the entire season.
Arizonaβs No. 3 pitcher, Jenny Gladding, went 14-2. Thatβs a pitching staff for the ages.
The Wildcats opened the season ranked No. 2 nationally but climbed to No. 1 after winning 31 consecutive games. Its pitching and middle-of-the-lineup production was so good that it enabled Candrea to deploy a shortstop, Allison Andrade, who batted ninth in the lineup and hit just .207. He valued Andradeβs defense and also knew the top-of-the-order punch from Bauer, Manuma, Mascarenas and third-team All-American Nicole Giordano was more than enough to hep Finch and Lemke win a Pac-10 championship with a 19-2 record.
A day after winning the national championship, the β01 Wildcats celebrated with 2,000 fans at Hillenbrand Stadium.
βIt was a dream season,β said Finch, who would run her matchless winning streak to 60-0 a year later. βIβll remember this forever.β
