Mike Candrea was sitting beyond Arizona’s outfield bleachers, below a tent, conducting his NCAA regional press conference at Hillenbrand Stadium. Arizona’s venerable softball coach recalled the early days, when the team had to wait for PE class to finish so the Wildcats could practice.
It was right about then when a ball, hit by a new New Mexico State player during an open practice, loudly struck those outfield bleachers.
BANG.
The ball was a reminder to Arizona that, starting Friday night at 6:30 p.m., when the No. 2-seeded Wildcats open the postseason against the Aggies, nothing that has happened before matters anymore.
Not Arizona’s best regular season in 13 years, or its first Pac-12 title in 10 years. Not its record-breaking slugger, or its hard-throwing ace. The UA’s opponents in the regional — South Carolina, St. Francis and New Mexico State — could care less about Arizona’s storied history, or its recent postseason struggles.
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“I don’t look beyond today, to tell you the truth,” Candrea said. “I’m trying to have a great practice and take it one step at a time. I know one thing about looking too far ahead — you can get bit really quick.”
Without even playing a game, the Wildcats already have been bitten — by the injury bug. Outfielder Alyssa Palomino injured her left knee during Wednesday’s practice and is day-to-day, according to a UA spokesman. Palomino was an observer at Thursday’s practice, walking around on crutches and in a knee brace, just a couple days after she excitedly spoke to the media about her first postseason appearance.
Last year, Palomino tore the ACL on her right knee and missed the entire season. She hit 16 home runs with 54 RBIs and was named both an All-Pac-12 and All-Freshman selection this season.
Palomino is unlikely to play this weekend; expect either the speedy Eva Watson or Pima College alumna Alexis Dotson, both seniors, to replace her in center field and in the lineup. Watson and Dotson started a combined 99 games in the outfield last season, but only eight this year.
Arizona hasn’t dealt with much adversity this year outside of late-season series losses to Utah and UCLA, but the Wildcats still are equipped to deal with the loss of Palomino. Arizona’s lineup includes six other all-conference selections, including Pac-12 co-player of the year Katiyana Mauga, and the Wildcats are aided by their best pitching staff in years, led by ace Danielle O’Toole.
“Everything is clicking. They have all the right pieces in the right places,” said UA alumna Kenzie Fowler, who will call this weekend’s games for ESPN. “Arizona has as good a shot to take it home as anyone.”
It helps to play at Hillenbrand, too, and the Wildcats are expecting a raucous sellout home crowd. Much like they have all season long, although the postseason is different.
Much like the old days.
“Coach has said Hillenbrand has been back to where he remembers it,” said senior shortstop Mo Mercado. “We’ve had great fan support all year, it’s a more magical feeling. Every game you know is going to be special somehow.”
Added Candrea: “The place is going to be rocking, and it should be a lot of fun.”
Fowler, who pitched in Arizona’s last Women’s College World Series appearance in 2010, still gets goosebumps thinking about what it’s like to pitch at Hillenbrand this time of the year.
She also knows the feeling of trying to live up to expectations that come with playing at Arizona.
“It’s there. There’s no hiding from it any player that plays at a prestigious program, you’re going to know where you are. USC football, Duke basketball, Arizona softball,” Fowler said. “That’s a weight, but there’s nothing like the buzz at Hillenbrand in postseason. There’s something, an electricity, that I will never be able to reciprocate ever again. You walk in and its hot, it’s your climate, the music is loud and you can tell it’s postseason. Then it kind of goes away. Then you’ve arrived, that’s it. This is it.”
The Wildcats are as balanced as any team in the nation — UA ranks third nationally in scoring and sixth in ERA — and certainly earned that No. 2 seed.
There are no plans to change anything now that the postseason has started — “the success this year is so high, so why change anything?” said outfielder Mandie Perez — though the rest of the Tucson Regional field doesn’t care much about what Arizona has done before.
“It doesn’t matter how many all-regional players you have or how many All-Pac-12 players you have, it’s what’s going to happen between the lines this weekend,” Candrea said. “That, I know for a fact.”
