Notebook: Arizona's Taylor McQuillin, back on track, shuts down Gamecocks

On April 9, her ERA was 0.65, the top mark in the Pac-12 and among the nation’s leaders.

By her last regular-season start against UCLA, when she allowed six hits and four earned runs — although still striking out 11 batters — her ERA had jumped to 1.87. In her last six regular season appearences, she had a 4.88 ERA.

If McQuillin’s early postseason results are any indication, she’s back on the right track.

Sunday night, the sophomore shut out South Carolina 9-0, striking out six while walking only one. She allowed seven hits while working out of a few jams.

McQuillin (16-3) also pitched in relief Friday against New Mexico State, striking out all six batters she faced.

“Taylor threw a great game today,” said UA coach Mike Candrea.

In the first inning, McQuillin had runners on first and third with two outs, then struck out Alyssa VanDerveer.

In the third inning, South Carolina singled and walked, so with batters on first and second, McQuillin induced a foul-out.

In the fourth, it was two singles that put runners on first and third … but ended with a groundout.

South Carolina managed a single in the sixth, and another in the seventh along with a hit by pitch, but McQuillin managed to get herself out of all of those jams.

In her first career postseason start, the Mission Viejo, California native was up for the challenge.

“I think postseason is the time where everybody is going to play to their full potential,” she said. “I think that they came out early, got on top and after that what I needed to do was go out and shut them down so I could get my team back in again and get some runs.”

Baylor knows Arizona is “a very good team”

Baylor advanced to face Arizona in the Super Regional round after winning their own regional Sunday. The Bears have some familiarity with both the Wildcats and playing at Hillenbrand Stadium, as Baylor lost to UA 4-0 here in February.

Baylor associate head coach Mark Lumley is an Arizona alum and outfielder Jessie Scroggins is the sister of former Wildcats quarterback Jesse Scroggins.

Baylor coach Glenn Moore is well aware of what the Bears are running into this weekend.

“I certainly wouldn’t pick Arizona to be in front of me to get to the World Series,” he told reporters. “They’re a very good team and we’ve already seen them this year. But we did some good things against them early in the year when we thought this team was in rebuilding mode.

Inside pitch

South Carolina survived a difficult conference schedule to make it to the Tucson Regional. After all, every one of the SEC’s 13 teams made it to the postseason.

So of course, South Carolina met its fair share of tournament-level opponents. After Sunday’s loss, USC coach Beverly Smith said that Arizona reminded her most of Auburn, the No. 7 overall seed and a team that eliminated the Wildcats last year in the Super Regional.

“They’ve got the speed. Auburn was similar to Arizona in terms of the balance with power kids at the top (of the lineup) and speed at the bottom,” Smith said. “We likened them to Auburn when we were preparing.”

• Four other Pac-12 teams advanced to the Super Regional: Oregon, Washington, UCLA and Utah.
• Arizona State, California and Oregon State were all eliminated.