Arizona's Ashleigh Hughes and her brother share bond that distance can't break

Her mind wandered a bit as the ceremony commenced. She thought back to her struggles at Utah the previous week, and focused on ways to improve heading into a key series with Oregon.

Which is why Hughes was confused when the public address announcer said her name, and why she was floored when she saw her brother walking toward the pitcher’s circle.

Ian Hughes, a senior airman on leave from the Air Force, made a trip to Tucson to surprise his sister.

“It was shock,” she said. “Complete shock.”

Ashleigh hadn’t seen her brother in two years, and didn’t know when she was going to see him again. The reunion was the highlight of arguably Arizona’s best week of the season. The Wildcats took two of three games from Oregon. The UA, now ranked No. 3 in the nation, will open a series against No. 23 Arizona State on Friday.

“Honestly, I just am really happy I got the time with him,” Hughes said, “because who knows when I’ll get the time again.”

A family connection

Ian Hughes chose to enlist a few years ago, in part because of a family connection.

Johnny Grizzle, Ian and Ashleigh’s grandfather, fought in the Korean War in the 1950s. It’s something the grandchildren didn’t learn until he died a few years ago.

Raynard Hughes, Ian and Ashley’s father, had long admired the Armed Forces. It was a place, Raynard told his son, where he could train and learn discipline. The son initially resisted. But Ian, a wrestler at Sierra College in Rocklin, California, found college to be a bad fit.

“He’d say, ‘I’m not serving in the military,’” Raynard Hughes said. “Then one day he came home and said, ‘I enlisted into the Air Force.’”

Ian took the ASVAB test, which places enlistees in the branch of the military that best fits their skills. The Air Force is the most challenging branch to test into.

He passed with flying colors.

Ian stood out in boot camp, and fitness and agility exercises, as a unit leader. He went to technical school to study aerospace propulsion, and graduated with double honors.

He has been stationed in Dover, Delaware, for the last few years as a propulsion technician.

“I wanted something that impacted the mission the most heavily, getting to make the aircraft take off and drop troops where they need to go for supplies,” he said. “I love it.”

Ian said joining the Air Force was about “being a part of something” and “the competitiveness of it.”

“I tested for all the branches,” he said, “and the Air Force was the most competitive.”

‘Put a glove on’

Ashleigh Hughes was just 5 years old when she showed the first signs of softball talent while playing baseball with her brother.

“I was the fastest one on my team, and she was the second fastest,” said Ian, who is two years older. “She was the only girl, and I hit it the farthest, but she would hit it almost as far as me.”

Ashleigh was always following Ian around, playing sports with him and his friends as the only girl.

She beat them in races and out-played them in basketball.

“I remember somebody said to her ‘You throw like a girl,’” Raynard Hughes recalled. “She said, ‘put a glove on.’”

Hughes committed to play at Alabama when she was just a freshman at Antelope High School, just outside Sacramento. By her senior year, she had flipped to Arizona.

Hughes platooned in the outfield as a freshman, then hit .271 as the Wildcats’ starting second baseman as a sophomore.

The Wildcats carry a 45-4 record this season, and Hughes is having the best year of her career. She’s hitting a career-high .384, the third-best mark on the team, and is tied for the team lead with five stolen bases.

“I had a lot of pride watching her get what I already knew she deserved the whole time,” Ian said. “It was just like an I told you. I already knew.”

Ashleigh says her brother played a big part in her success. The two are best friends, attached to the hip when they’re together, talking on the phone when they’re not.

“When I was little, I started off playing baseball because I wanted to be just like him,” she said. “I was mad at my parents for making me play softball because I didn’t want to. I thought the girls were dumb, I thought they were just going to stand there and pick flowers.”

‘A hell of a lot bigger than this game’

As Ian Hughes walked to the pitcher’s circle at Hillenbrand, his eyes focused directly on his sister.

Ashleigh, with tears in her eyes, ran out to hug him.

The 2,746 fans, the players, coaches and television cameras all melted away.

“I was walking out there, and everything else was me and her,” he said. “I didn’t see all the other details until I watched the video.”

The reunion was a long time coming. Ashleigh missed Ian’s wedding two years ago because the Wildcats were holding fall drills. Because of their conflicting schedules — Ian works the night shift on the East Coast, and Ashleigh has schoolwork and softball practice — the two often have to plan their conversations well in advance.

It was during one of those conversations that Ashleigh told her brother a secret: Every time a serviceman throws out a first pitch, she imagines that it’s him.

Ian had an idea. He contacted Hughes’ roommate, pitcher Taylor McQuillin, and got enthusiastic approval from UA coach Mike Candrea.

The coach admits he’s “a softy” when it comes to the military.

“I don’t think we do enough for them. To me, it’s a hell of a lot bigger than this game,” he said. “There was never a doubt in my mind that I would do that.”

Ian returned to the Hughes’ Sacramento, California, home two weeks ago, and swore his family to secrecy. Ashleigh didn’t know Ian was back; his social media accounts went dark.

“I had no idea,” she said.

It still didn’t seem real last Friday, when Ashleigh made an impressive jumping catch and ripped a single in a UA win. Ashleigh kept popping her head out of the Wildcats’ dugout and scanning the crowd for her brother.

“I was just like, OK, it did happen,” she said. “It wasn’t a dream.”

Ashleigh ripped a game-tying single in the second inning of Saturday’s 10-7 win over the Ducks. She pointed to Ian from first base. He was going crazy, jumping and screaming.

“Embarrassing,” she said, laughing.

The siblings spent the rest of the weekend eating their way through Tucson and hiking Mount Lemmon. Ashleigh convinced Ian to push his departure from Sunday to Monday.

“It was absolutely amazing,” their father said. “Watching them, watching my son and daughter and their mother interact over the course of the weekend was priceless to me. … To see the look on her face made all the work that we had to go through worthwhile.”

Ian will deploy to Turkey this summer for a 15-month stint, and will spend the four years after that in Okinawa, Japan. Neither Ian nor Ashleigh know the next time they will see each other, but they’re already making plans. Ian left Ashleigh a note when he left Tucson. It read, in part: “I know that one weekend won’t make up for years of missed memories.”

He also left a piggy bank, and instructions to start saving money so Ashleigh can visit him.

“It’s been hard because I haven’t had time to go see him,” she said. “There’s no time. No time feels like it’s enough time.”