UCLA
Alabama
Bruins Open Women's College World Series With 3-1 Victory
May 25, 2000 | Softball
May 25, 2000
OKLAHOMA CITY - The UCLA softball team opened its 2000 Women's College World series with its 13th consecutive postseason victory, a 4-1 win over Alabama. The Bruins improve to 44-11-1 with the win, and advance to play Washington at 6 p.m. Central Time on Friday in a winners bracket contest. Alabama falls to 65-13 and will play DePaul on Saturday in an elimination game. Earlier today, Washington defeated DePaul, 3-2.
The Bruins started a little shaky with a walk to Crimson Tide leadoff hitter Kelly Kretschman before Suzanne Olcott reached on an error by Bruin second baseman Lyndsey Klein that put Kretschman on thrid and Olcott on second base. Kretschman would then score, unearned, on a sacrifice fly by first baseman Ginger Jones.
From that point, both teams fought off errors and first-game jitters, leaving the score at 1-0 Alabama until the bottom of the fifth inning.
In the fifth, the Bruins opened with single to right field by first baseman Tairia Mims followed by a sacrifice bunt by centerfielder Crissy Buck. Buck's bunt, was dropped by Jones, allowing Mims to advance to third and Buck to go to second base. After two groundouts, freshman shortstop Natasha Watley steppped to the plate and smacked a fly ball to deep left field, where it was bobbled and dropped by Bama's Paula White, scoring Mims and Buck, both unearned.
Entering the bottom of the sixth inning with a 2-1 lead, UCLA catcher Julie Marshall singled up the middle and was then hit home by Klein, who sent her 10th home run of the season over the left field fence, sealing the 4-1 win for the Bruins.
Marshall was the only Bruin with multiple hits, adding a second-inning single to her sixth-inning hit. The two teams combined for six errors, while UCLA out-hit Alabama by a 6-2 margin.
"I was pleased that we did a good job of remaining composed," said UCLA head coach Sue Enquist. "Alabama jumped on us early after we cracked the door for them, and we relied on clutch hitting and execution to win the ball game. It's nice to get the first game out of the way."
