After taking down previously unbeaten and #1 TCU yesterday, the #3 ranked Bruins beat Cal Poly today 4-1 - still in San Luis Obispo. They play #2 ranked USC this afternoon at 5:45 pm Pacific time also in San Luis Obispo.
Their last two remaining regular season games after today will be at Mapes Beach on Thursday, April 20th vs #2 SC at noon Pacific time and vs #6 Loyola Marymount at 4 pm PT; both games will be carried on Pac-12 Network.
After that comes the Pac-12 Tournament at Stanford on the 26th, 27th and 28th.
Softball - having beaten AZ in Tucson 8-0 yesterday, today we started someone other than Faraimo and paid the price for it. AZ scored four in the second inning to take a 4-0 lead. Brady drove in a run in the top of the third to make it 4-1.
Brady hit a two run HR (second in two days) in the top of the fifth to make it 4-3 which was the score going into the top of the seventh (and last) inning.
Jordan singled in the tying run top of the seventh, Palacios (a transfer from Arizona) hit a three run HR to make it 7-4 UCLA and then Cid doubled to left-center driving in Vines to make it 8-4. Faraimo came in to pitch the sixth and seventh innings and shut Arizona down. UCLA won their 11th straight game.
The concern is we really seem to have one top notch ready-for-prime-time pitcher - Faraimo. She was brutalized by Oklahoma at the start of the season, a picture that's hard to wipe out of my head but the team is far different now than it was then with Jordan back and the youngsters having a season under their belts now.
In the old days, teams went the whole women's World Series - multiple games against the toughest opposition - behind one pitcher. The days of the Fernandez vs Jenny was it Finch? of Arizona. Guess we could do it again but Faraimo does appear to tire at times. Hopefully the transfer from Oregon is up to it and can pitch some innings, perhaps a game. But it seems to me that is the second biggest hurdle between us and another NC, the first one being OK which really is a veritable killers row and is also top notch in pitching and on defense.
Hope if we start talking about this here, nobody's post will get moved down from the top of the list on the basketball board which will upset them....