Alabama is on a road trip to Oklahoma City, the best trip a college softball team can make. The Crimson Tide boarded its charter plane Tuesday to head to the Women's College World Series, where Bama will take on the UCLA Bruins at 11 a.m. CDT Thursday (ESPN televising).
Before boarding, Alabama Coach Patrick Murphy met with reporters.
He began with the obvious, that Alabama's regular season did not portend a chance to win the national championship. Bama goes into the WCWS with a 38-18 record. The Tide was 10-14 in Southeastern Conference play and one-and-done in the SEC Tournament.
Murphy said, "Everybody should be so proud of this group. They could have listened to the negative, but they didn't, and I didn't, and the staff didn't. This group grew up in front of our eyes."
There were times this year – too many times, one would suggest – where Murphy would lament over a loss with, "One hit (at the right time) was all we needed." Those hits began in the NCAA Tournament.
A late home run by Riley Valentine in the Tuscaloosa Regional to propel Bama to a win in the opening game and a grand slam homer by Valentine to start the Crimson Tide on the way to the 4-1 win over Tennessee in the winner-take-all Knoxville Regional were standouts.
Prior to leaving for Oklahoma City and down 1-0 against Tennessee, Murphy received a telephone call from Tide Basketball Coach Nate Oats pointing out the similarities of Murphy's softball team to last season's Alabama football team – the loss to Texas and the poor play in the South Florida game, but going to the College Football Playoff – and Bama basketball starting the season with a handful of losses, going one-and-done in the SEC Tournament, and then finishing in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament.
Hitting, the Achilles heel of this year's team (a .211 team batting average with center fielder Kristen White (.326) the only Tider hitting over .300.
Pitching, however, has been very, very good, led by graduate transfer Kayla Beaver (18-9 with a 1.58 earned run average) and freshman Jocelyn Briski (9-5, 2.24 ERA). Briski pitched shutout ball into the seventh inning in Knoxville until giving way to Beaver to close it out.
(Murphy said Beaver had just been named to an All-America team.)
That game was notable for a three-hour weather delay following the top half of the first inning.
"We didn't even take the field and then had to sit for three hours," he said. Murphy was worried about a shift in momentum Bama had built in the top of the first, and had to think about his pitcher, the freshman Briski.
"The other hero of the game was Briski," he said. "Giving the ball to a freshman with the World Series on the line and she went out there like she was a fourth-year player with no worries, no nerves. She impressed the hell out of me."
Murphy was the last member of the Crimson Tide travel party to make it to Tuscaloosa National Airport. "I looked in my bag and I had only three lineup cards," he said. "I thought, 'We're playing more than three #@%&ing games,' so I had to go to the office."
The team did not return from Knoxville until 3:45 a.m. Sunday and players were given Sunday and Monday off. Murphy said that goes back to something he heard former Alabama Football Coach Nick Saban say: "Giving them one day off is good, giving them two days off is awesome."
He knows something about playing in the WCWS. Of his 28 teams, over half – 15 – have now made it.
Just to bring you up-to-date a bit on UCLA from BruinReportonline.com:
UCLA (32-10) advanced to the WCWS with two wins over Georgia (run rule 8-0 and 6-1) in the Los Angeles Super Regional.
In Thursday's game, senior shortstop Maya Brady (and the niece of Tom Brady) led the Bruins, going 3 for 4, with two home runs. She has 71 in her career. On Friday, redshirt senior catcher Sharlize Palacios led the team with her own two home runs, on a 3-of-3performanceat the plate and 4 RBIs.
In Thursday's win, Pac-12 Freshman of the Year pitcher Kaitlyn Terry threw six scoreless innings, running her record to 21-1 on the season.
On Friday, it was sophom*ore pitcher Taylor Tinsley (17-8) who went the seven innings in allowing just one run to get the win over the Bulldogs.
It will be the 32nd time UCLA has played in the WCWS, more than any other program in the country. (Alabama hasn't even had a softball program for 32 years.) It's won the most national championships of any program, with 13 (one was vacated), and most recently in 2019.
This year's UCLA team is one of the hottest in the country at the moment, having won its last 13 games. It finished the regular season ranked No. 10 nationally, but has been playing recently like a national championship contender.
