Arizona softball's surging sophomores making most of shot at becoming next special Wildcat class

These are the COVID-19 kids — the class that wasn’t allowed to take official visits on college campuses, and the one of which coaches weren’t allowed to travel to watch them play in person. Everything was done remotely.

Arizona coach Caitlin Lowe was watching film of the seven who make up that class — Dakota Kennedy, Olivia DiNardo, Tayler Biehl, Kaiah Altmeyer, Logan Cole, Sydney Somerndike and Aissa Silva — but had no way to observe them live as they played.

When Lowe gave them their offers to play at Arizona, it was done virtually, over Zoom.

While they may have come and walked around the Arizona campus on their own, that would have been it. None were afforded an in-person connection with their future coaches or teammates during the recruiting process.

Lowe said that this class means a lot to her. This is the group that took that leap of faith and trusted in her and the storied program.

She also had a feeling this group might just be another one of those great Wildcat recruiting classes — like the one that brought in current UA seniors Allie Skaggs, Jasmine Perezchica and Carlie Scupin. Or even the one that brought in the likes of Dejah Mulipola, Jessie Harper and Reyna Carranco before them.

“I knew that they were special,” Lowe said. “That’s what I’ll say to that.

“I knew that they were competitors,” she added. “I think they’ve exceeded my expectations as far as their work ethic once they got here and you never know until they get here. I think that’s a leap of faith on both ends, but, at the same time, I think that class especially has fed off each other and just their competitive energy. They’re winners and they want to win and do everything they can to get there.”

The Wildcats (36-16-1) are back in the NCAA Tournament field again in 2024 after their absence last season, and they’ve relied on the sophomore class to help get them there. The class is also setting Arizona up for a bright future.

With Friday’s 14-3 blowout win over Villanova, Arizona moves on to play either Arkansas or Southeast Missouri State on Saturday at noon in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

‘We were never 20; we were always one’

Each player in the class has put their mark on Wildcat history already.

Lowe did all she could to get the current sophomores into the lineup in their rookie season. If they weren’t starting as freshmen (like left fielder Kennedy and catcher DiNardo) — always hard on an Arizona roster that generally packed with talent — they were splitting time and filling in where they could (like Altmeyer, Cole and Biehl).

That experience prepared them for this year. However, what seems to have fueled them even more is not making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 35 years last spring. With the bar set so high at Arizona, a program with eight national championships and more than two dozen Women’s College World Series appearances, the Wildcat players clearly carried that burden with them into this season.

While most didn’t want to dwell on it, they made a conscious effort starting last summer and into the fall to fine-tune the little things even more, “so that we didn’t have to have a year like that again,” Altmeyer said.

There was also a theme to the 50th season in UA history that built on last year’s “On the boat,” meaning that they need to be going in one direction. They watched the movie ‘The Boys in the Boat’ and a saying repeated by Kennedy, their first-team All-Pac-12 standout in left field, stuck with them all year: “We were never 20; we were always one,” she said.

“If we’re not on the same page — if we’re not all wanting it as much as a person next to us when we’re in the water — it’s not going to make us go quicker to where we want to be,” Biehl said. “Just understanding ‘On the boat’ and just hyping each other up, and just being each other’s biggest fans.

“When things go wrong or a little bump in the road, we (are) having each other’s backs. We’re picking each other up.”

All of this helped put together a successful season, including in-season Pac-12 honors for Altmeyer after her walk-on homer against ASU; it also led to multiple league nods, where Biehl was the Pac-12’s co-Defensive Player of the Year and, in addition to Kennedy’s first-team recognition, Silva and Biehl were second and third-team selections, respectively.

Day-to-day impact

But even more, it’s been the day-to-day impact from this class that has lifted the Wildcats.

Silva logged 140 innings, winning 21 games, second-most in the Pac-12 this season. Biehl had 103 assists at shortstop. Kennedy continues to dazzle with her fielding, and her errorless season so far has been a main component of UA posting the nation’s second-best fielding percentage (.982).

Legendary former UA coach Mike Candrea said Kennedy “has great power, great speed, great instincts. She’s a good outfielder with a strong arm and you’ve gotta like everything you see there.”

She also can rake, hitting .391 and driving in 27 runs to go with a slugging percentage of .629.

DiNardo, who was limited by a hamstring injury in March and moved into the designated player position afterward, is coming off a stellar batting performance in the Pac-12 Tournament. She led the Wildcats with a .714 average while recording a double and two home runs and making the all-tournament team.

DiNardo is “a professional hitter,” Candrea said.

“She’s a really good hitter and I’m looking forward to her improving defensively, but I think she’s very capable of helping this team both offensively and defensively,” Candrea said. “Without a doubt, she’s one of the best hitters that I’ve seen at a young age with the power that she displays.”

While Candrea typically doesn’t share his opinion on classes or compare one to another until their junior years, he did say that he was “impressed” with this group.

Scupin added that she sees is a maturity in this group of sophomores.

“They step up in these huge games like it’s nothing and they make it look easy. I didn’t have that when I was a sophomore,” Scupin said. “I look up to them in a way. It’s just their calm presence in those big moments is amazing. Then they’re feisty — they just want to win. They’re huge contributors to our team.”

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