What’s Bruin: UCLA Softball’s Rachel Garcia Earns More Accolades

Let’s take a look at What’s Bruin this Friday afternoon.

UCLA Softball

After being selected as the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year and the Women’s College World Series Most Valuable Player and, of course, being an integral part of UCLA’s latest softball national championship, Rachel Garcia was most recently selected as the Schutt Sports/NFCA D1 National Pitcher of the Year. Her three-run walk-off home run on Sunday night gave the Bruins the win they needed to advance to the Championship Series. She led all Women’s College World Series pitchers in wins and was second in strikeouts.

UCLA Women’s Soccer

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup begins today. A total of nine current and former UCLA players and coaches will be in participation. The United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil will all boast Bruins on their rosters. Most notably, former UCLA head coach Jill Ellis will lead the U.S. team.

UCLA Men’s Soccer

U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder and former Bruin Jackson Yueill made his debut on Wednesday night in an exhibition game against Jamaica. He is the eighth player to make his debut this year. The U.S. lost the game 1-0.

UCLA Baseball

There’s been a lot of baseball news this week with the Bruins beating LMU on Monday and the MLB Draft happening. In other baseball news, freshman pitcher Jesse Bergin was named a Freshman All-American on Wednesday. UCLA has had either a position player or pitcher earn Freshman All-America recognition in five consecutive seasons. Meanwhile, yesterday, Bruin closer Holden Powell was named one of six finalists for the Stopper of the Year Award which is presented by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.

UCLA Track and Field

The NCAA track and field national championships are underway, and the UCLA men’s shot putters made some noise on Wednesday night, putting up six of the team’s eight points.

UCLA women competed Thursday evening in the 400 meter prelims and the hammer, pole vault, and shot put finals. UCLA sophomore Alyssa Wilson finished third in the hammer, with a best distance of 69.75 meters and 7th in shot put with a distance of 17.13 meters. Additionally, Elleyse Garrett tied for ninth in the pole vault, throwing a distance of 4.20 meters. The UCLA men’s and women’s teams are both tied for ninth place, with 8 points each.

Today, UCLA will compete in men’s 5,000 meter, high jump, and discus, as well as women’s heptathlon. Men’s events begin at 5:00 pm PT and the heptathlon begins at 12:30 pm PT.

UCLA Rowing

The UCLA Rowing team announced a recruiting class with 15 members, which crosses the country as well as the Atlantic. Nine of the recruits come from Calilfornia while one comes from New Hampshire and one from New Jersey. The remaining four will come to Westwood from the United Kingdom

UCLA Gymnastics

New UCLA head coach Chris Waller has hired two more assistant coaches to complete his coaching staff for 2020. Earlier this week, Waller announced that Dom Pelange will serve as an assistant coach. Pelange had previously served as a volunteer assistant coach for UCLA Gymnastics from 2014-16. Then, Waller announced that professional choreographer and dancer BJ Das will serve as UCLA Gymnastics’ volunteer assistant coach. In addition to having competed as a gymnast at the University of Washington, Das served as a volunteer assistant coach and choreographer at the University of Utah in 2019.

And that’s What’s Bruin on this Friday.


Go Bruins!