Bruins Prevail in Extra Innings

Stacey Nuveman, the UCLA softball team’s sleeping giant, awoke Sunday, driving in the game-winning run in the eighth inning to eliminate DePaul, 2-1, and send the Bruins to the Women’s College World Series championship game.

Top-seeded UCLA plays Washington in the final here today at 10 a.m.

Nuveman, the nation’s leader in home runs and runs batted in, was 0 for 5 going into Sunday’s game against DePaul and was hitless in her first two at-bats against the eighth-seeded Blue Demons.

But a soft single in the sixth ended her drought, and her double in the bottom of the eighth scored Lyndsey Klein from first to give UCLA the extra-inning victory.

“I came into the World Series and I just wanted to get the job done,” said Nuveman, a sophomore who is only three RBIs from tying Alleah Poulson’s UCLA record of 165. “I was pressing in the first two games and the first two at-bats of this game.

“So it was just a matter of relaxing and taking the pressure off of myself.”

Nuveman’s double gave UCLA a total of eight hits in the game, a single-game Series high this year, and it was a product of the 6-foot-1 Bruin player’s strength. The Blue Demons (54-14) had shifted their defense against Nuveman, with second baseman Yvette Healy playing on the third base side of second base. But Nuveman’s grounder was not only hit hard enough to find the hole between Healy and shortstop Karen Stewart, but also to roll all the way to the fence in left-center field.

By the time the ball made it back to catcher Katy Carter, Klein had run across the plate, waved home by an animated Coach Sue Enquist.

“I knew they were playing so deep and [Klein] is the quickest kid on our team,” said Enquist, whose team is 62-6, tying the school record for victories set in 1990. “We were going to score on that play.”

The run not only brought an end to the game, but an end to an exciting two-game battle between the teams.

There have been only two extra-inning games in the 12 played in Oklahoma City: both matching DePaul and UCLA. And the Bruins are the only ones to come from behind and win. They’ve done it twice against the Blue Demons.

“We just ran into the best team in the country,” DePaul Coach Eugene Lenti said. “We came as close as you can get. One hit our way and it’s a different story.”

In the first game against DePaul in the opening round, Courtney Dale pitched all nine innings for the Bruins to get the victory. Sunday, she hurt DePaul with her bat.

With her team down, 1-0, in the sixth, Dale led off by sending a 1-and-1 pitch over the fence in left-center to tie the score with her fourth home run.

On the mound for the Bruins in the semifinal was freshman Amanda Freed, starting her second game in a row. After shutting out Fresno State on five hits in the second round, Freed limited DePaul to four hits. The only run she gave up, only her second in her last 41 innings, was unearned.

Julie Luna led off the second for DePaul with a ground ball that shortstop Crissy Buck booted for an error. With two outs, Katy Carter’s single advanced pinch runner Molly Sircher to third. On the next pitch, Carter broke toward second, Nuveman threw to Buck covering the bag, and by the time Carter was tagged out in a rundown, Sircher had scored the game’s first run.

“We run that play back home a lot,” Lenti said. “Teams on the West Coast don’t see it very often and don’t know how to defend it.”

However, two West Coast teams will be in the final. Washington advanced by defeating California for the second time in the Series, 3-0, in the second semifinal.

Kim DePaul was two for three with two RBIs in the game, and Jennifer Spediacci pitched four innings for the victory.

The Bruins and Huskies split four games this season.

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Today’s Final

* What: NCAA softball national championship game

* Who: UCLA (62-6) vs. Washington (51-17)

* When: 10 a.m.

* TV: ESPN2