COLLEGE SOFTBALL: BRUINS FALL INTO LOSERS' BRACKET UCLA TRAILING IN ELIMINATION GAME.Byline: RAMONA SHELBURNE Ramona Shelburne is an American sports journalist currently writing for the Los Angeles Daily News. Shelburne was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She attended El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California where she was a class valedictorian. Staff Writer The UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX softball team has had plenty of adversity to deal with this year. At times, the Bruins' pitching situation has been dicey. The defense has been downright shaky. The one thing that's kept them in games -- and among the top teams in the country -- has been their offense. Saturday afternoon UCLA finally looked to have the first two issues squared away. But for some reason, flipping those two switches on seemed to turn the third one off, and the result was devastating dev·as·tate tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates 1. To lay waste; destroy. 2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. . "Our offense lost that ball game," UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said after her team's 3-1 eight-inning loss to Hawaii in the winners' bracket championship of the Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. Regional. "Offense has been a strength this year, but it wasn't there today." The loss dropped UCLA into the losers' bracket of the four-team double-elimination tournament A double-elimination tournament is a competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost two games or matches. . The Bruins had to play Loyola Marymount in an elimination game Saturday night, with the winner moving on to play Hawaii in the regional championship at 2:30 this afternoon. The Bruins beat LMU LMU Ludwig Maximilians Universität (München) LMU Loyola Marymount University LMU Leeds Metropolitan University (UK) LMU Lincoln Memorial University LMU Location Measurement Unit 6-3 on Friday night, but that was before Lions' sophomore Megan Ackermann went on a tear at the plate. Ackermann, a former Westlake High standout, blasted a grand slam in LMU's 5-3 victory over UC Santa Barbara earlier in the day, then staked the Lions to a 3-0 lead over UCLA with a blast off Bruins' pitcher Anjelica Selden in the bottom of the fourth inning. After the loss to Hawaii, Inouye-Perez reminded her team that it had been in a similar situation two years earlier, dropping into the losers' bracket at both the Regional and Super Regional tournaments before rallying to advance all the way to the championship game of the Women's College World Series The Women's College World Series (WCWS) is the final portion of the NCAA Women's Softball Tournament for college softball in the United States. The tournament is conducted in an eight-team, double-elimination format. . "We've been here before," Inouye-Perez said. "And we've been fighting back since the second round of Pac-10 play, so why should this be any different." ramona.shelburne@dailynews.com (818) 713-3617 |
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