Gators to face UCLA again with chance to advance

By winning their first two games in the Gainesville Regional, the Florida softball team put itself in the best situation to advance to the NCAA Super Regional on Sunday.

The Gators will have two opportunities to beat UCLA and advance to the next round of the 2011 NCAA Division I Softball Championship as the double elimination format favors them thanks to wins against Bethune-Cookman, and last year’s national champion.

But beating UCLA twice in three possible games will still be a difficult task for the Gators regardless of how the numbers stack up against the Bruins.

After starting the season 27-5, UCLA has won only eight of their last 21 games.

The majority of the final stretch has been against Pac-10 competition as the Bruins went 9-12 in their conference to end the regular season.

Of the seven teams UCLA faces in conference play, six of them were ranked in the top 15 below Florida with the exception of the No. 1 team in the country, Arizona State, and their 50-6 record. The Bruins won the first game of the series against ASU on April 15, but were held scoreless in their next two games.

In addition to playing in the best conference in softball, UCLA has dealt with injuries throughout the year which has led to its 8-13 record against nationally ranked opponents this season.

In Saturday’s contest against UF, the injury bug struck again as backup catcher Alyssa Tiumalu and center fielder Devon Lindvall were hurt during the game.

While Tiumalu left the game in the second inning after going down on the basepaths with a right knee injury, Lindvall finished the game despite getting a knee to the head from left fielder B.B. Bates while attempting to make a diving catch in the fifth.

Both players did not play during UCLA’s second game of the day where they used 21 hits to dismantle Jacksonville in a 12-4 contest ending the Dolphins’ season. Their status on Sunday is still undetermined.

UCLA head coach Kelly Inoyue-Perez said the struggles her team has faced playing in the Pac-10 alongside the injuries has created a new dynamic for the team every weekend this season.

“It builds a different type of strength and tool for you,” she said. “You got to learn how to deal with adversity.”

Of all the injuries this season, none has had a greater impact than senior Monica Harrison, who suffered an upper-body injury in February and has been held out of competition since bringing an end to her UCLA career.

The injury even influenced junior Andrea Harrison to change her number to her sister’s.

When the injuries happened to Tiumalu and Lindvall, the UCLA first baseman did what she has been doing all season – playing for others and not her.

“It’s so much easier to play for somebody else rather than yourself,” Harrison said. “You’re not worried about the outcome or anything like that so I basically just played for my teammates today.”

Despite going 0-for-3 against the Gators on Saturday, Harrison went off on Jacksonville going 5-for-5 with four RBIs. On Friday, it was Harrison who also had the clutch hit to give UCLA the win over the Dolphins.

As for facing UF pitching for the third time, and possibly fourth time this season, she said she expects to see the same things she’s seen from Stephanie Brombacher and Hannah Rogers this season.

“They know not to give me anything over the plate,” Harrison said.

The Bruins will have to beat Florida twice on Sunday to advance to the NCAA Super Regional and they believe they can.

“I have no doubt in my mind that this team can do it,” said GiOnna DiSalvatore, a senior playing just a few hours from her hometown of Palm Harbor. “I mean, we got people in different positions but we’re still prepared.”

DiSalvatore also had a four-RBI game against Jacksonville to extend her senior campaign, and said Sunday’s contest will be just another game for the resilient Bruins.

“We plan on making that if necessary game,” she said, “and we’re going to come out with a lot of energy like we did today and take it to them.”

While Florida head coach Tim Walton did not have a definite answer to who he will start in the circle, he did allude to Rogers possibly being okay to pitch with 24 hours of rest after throwing 129 pitchers.

“It’s pretty hard to take the ball out of a hot pitcher’s hands like Hannah, but the two of them have been complimenting each other so well,” he said.

Either way, Walton’s strategy to not throw Brombacher on Saturday allows her to throw on Sunday with a full day of rest between starts. If Brombacher struggles early or Florida loses the first game, Walton has the luxury of throwing Rogers at any time.

The Gators also have a newfound energy on the offensive end to carry them as it has during their first two games.

An emphasis on playing small ball – dropping the sacrifice bunts and stealing bases – has helped the Gators notch 12 runs off of 13 hits and nine stolen bases so far in the Gainesville Regional.

But despite giving up five of those stolen bases, the Bruins believe they beat themselves by not taking their time against Rogers.

“We were not playing our game,” Bates said. “We were speeding it up and everything. I feel like if we would have slowed it down and played the UCLA way, we would have done better.”

Not diverting from their game is just another adversity UCLA will face on Sunday against Florida’s pitchers.

“We did out play them,” Inoyue-Perez said. “We hit (Rogers). We hit her. We faced Brombacher before and we’ve hit her. It’s really about us.”

Gator Country reporter Safid Deen can be reached at Safid@GatorCountry.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/SafidDeenGC.