UCLA’s bid for a 13th national championship begins Thursday with a familiar opponent at the Women’s College World Series.
The Bruins (54-11) face Oregon at Devon Park at 6:30 p.m. (PST) on the first day of a double-elimination tournament featuring Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Texas Tech.
Two finalists will play a best-of-three series to determine the NCAA softball champion beginning June 4.
The matchup between UCLA and Oregon will be the 131st meeting between current Big Ten teams and former Pac-12 rivals. The Bruins have dominated the series with 97 wins.
The teams played once previously in the World Series in 2015, with UCLA winning, 7-1.
More recently, Oregon (53-8) won two of three at home against the Bruins in April. Only one of the games was close. The host Ducks won by scores of 3-1 and 9-0. UCLA won the second game, 8-0.
“What I learned most was our best is yet to come,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said Wednesday. “We didn’t play our best ball. We had a day. We had a day where we definitely showed up on day two and finished a game, but day three we didn’t finish out.
“At the end of the day, you go to every series with a goal of winning the series, and we walked away knowing we just didn’t play our best game. And I think that really set the tone for us getting ready to be able to come through in games like we did in regionals and super regionals because of those lessons learned.”
UCLA won back-to-back elimination games in the Super Regionals at South Carolina to advance to Oklahoma City. The Bruins were down to their final out in Game 2 when Jordan Woolery hit a 2-run walk-off home run to cap a four-run rally.
The homer secured the largest seventh-inning comeback in UCLA postseason history.
The ninth-seeded Bruins are led by Woolery, a USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Top 10 finalist, and Top 25 finalist Megan Grant.
The junior sluggers have combined for 48 home runs and 165 runs batted in, which leads all duos nationally. Grant and Woolery’s combined RBI total is the most by a pair of UCLA players in a single season.
Kaitlyn Terry and Taylor Tinsley will lead the way in the circle for the Bruins.
Terry is 19-5 with a 2.62 ERA while Tinsley is 15-4 with a 2.62 ERA. In the South Carolina super regional, the pair allowed four runs on 12 hits — all singles
No. 16 seed Oregon, the Big Ten regular-season champion, last played in the World Series in 2018.
The Ducks bring balance to the matchup, with 85 homers and nearly three steals a game. Oregon is the only team in the NCAA ranked in the top 10 in scoring, ERA and fielding.
Oregon’s pitching ace is Lyndsey Grein, who is 29-2-3 with a 2.08 ERA and 134 strikeouts with 41 walks.
She started all three games in the Bruins’ series and didn’t allow a run in 11.1 innings of work.
Woolery had four hits and four RBIs in the series while Grant went 1 for 5 with a double and three walks.
Both players are looking forward to the challenge of facing Grein again.
“Yeah, good pitching brings good competition,” Woolery said. “So I think we just try to rise to the occasion. I think we’re just really grateful to face more great pitching once again this weekend, and I feel like it’s going to be a really great opportunity for both of us.”
Grant is looking to break out on the big stage.
“It’s great competition, and it’s a competitive battle at the end of the day,” she said. “Going to win some, going to lose some, but I’m excited for the next opportunity to play again.”
The winner of tomorrow’s game faces the winner of the game between Mississippi and Texas Tech on Saturday at 4 p.m. (PST).
The loser between UCLA and Oregon plays the loser of Mississippi-Texas Tech at 6:30 p.m. (PST) Friday.