Quest For 114: UCLA Starts Women’s College World Series Against LSU

The Bruins open play today in the Women’s College World Series when they face the LSU Tigers. UCLA got to Oklahoma City by sweeping Ole Miss in last weekend’s NCAA Super Regional. Meanwhile, the Tigers lost their first Super Regional game to Florida State 3-1. LSU bounced back to snap Florida State’s 36-game home winning streak in the second game of the Super Regional. Then, the Tigers did it again beating the Seminoles 6-4 in the deciding game to advance to the WCWS.

The Bruins are familiar with LSU. They beat the Tigers 6-5 in extra innings at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic II in Cathedral City back on February 25th.

The format for the WCWS is set up similar to Regionals. In the first portion, there’s double elimination play among the eight teams that are playing. That cuts the field from eight to two and those final two teams then play a best-of-3 format in the WCWS Finals.

In addition to the Tigers, the other two teams in Bracket #1 with the Bruins are #1 seed Florida (55-6) and #9 seed Texas A&M (47-11). UCLA lost to Florida 2-1 in the Judi Garman Classic on March 3rd in Fullerton. Texas A&M is the only which UCLA hasn’t played.

Over in Bracket #2, two of the four teams are Pac-12 opponents while the Bruins played the other two teams this season as well. Game 3 tonight features #3 seed Oregon against #6 seed Washington in a battle of Pac-12 teams while Game 4 has #10 seed Oklahoma taking on #15 seed Baylor. The Sooners were one of just two teams to beat UCLA in a mercy rule game this season when they won 10-1 in 5 innings on February 24th in Cathedral City. Baylor also beat the Bruins this year, winning 11-6 on March 5th.

But all of those games were played months ago.

Right now, the Bruins are hot. UCLA has won 18 of their last 19 games, dating back to April 18th and they haven’t lost in nearly a month when they lost 7-2 to Arizona on May 7th.

Now, they just need to win their next three games (or four of their next five) to advance to the WCWS Finals.


Go Bruins!!! Bring Home #114!