Focus shifts to No. 1 Arizona

[NewsCopy]

Forget the seeds. Forget the cliffhanger in the opening game.

No. 9 Louisiana meets No. 1 Arizona at 4 p.m. today to grab the driver’s seat in NCAA Region I softball action in Tucson.

“This is where we want to be,” UL co-head coach Michael Lotief said. “We want to play the best in the country. We’ll go anywhere to play anybody, because that can only make us better.

“We want to see what kind of team we are.”

The Cajuns improved to 56-6 by defeating SEC member South Carolina in their Thursday opener, but they cut it close by scoring the game’s only run with two outs in the seventh inning.

Then again, that shouldn’t be a surprise for the Cajuns. They beat Fullerton and Oklahoma State by the same 1-0 score in regional play last season en route to the 2003 Women’s College World Series.

“Seeds don’t mean anything at this point,” Lotief said. “It’s an 8-team tournament. We had two 1-0 games last year. This is the way it’s going to be played.”

The common denominator is Brooke Mitchell, who carried the Cajuns on her back last season and twirled a one-hitter on Thursday.

“Nobody in Lafayette is surprised by the way Brooke pitched today,” Lotief said. “She’s the most extraordinary story in college softball, in my opinion. She’s calm. She gives us a presence on the mound.”

“It worked out for us,” Mitchell said. “We just went one pitch at a time. We knew we were going to get it done.”

The rest of the story

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com

[NewsCopy]

Slighted Cajuns set for grueling game with No. 1 Arizona


Louisiana's players and coaches don't want to admit it, but they feel slighted by their low seed after the accomplishments of their past two seasons.

After reaching the Women's College World Series last year and going 55-6 in the regular season, the Ragin' Cajuns expected something better than the No. 5 seed in top-ranked Arizona's Region No. 1.

What that seed will give them, following a 1-0 win over fourth-seeded South Carolina Thursday afternoon, is another shot at the Wildcats. The teams meet today at 2 p.m. in a winners bracket game.

"Our hitters have grown up a lot since the last time we played" Arizona, UL co-head coach Stefni Lotief said. "With Brooke Mitchell on the mound we have a chance to beat any team in the country."

The UA beat the Cajuns 2-0 in March at the Kia Classic in Fullerton, Calif., which was the last time Mitchell (42-3) lost this season. The junior struck out eight Thursday to give her 492 strike outs on the year.

Louisiana (56-6) scattered seven hits, getting most of them with two outs, including Danyelle Gomez's double to left-center in the sixth. That allowed Holly Tankersley to score from first with the game's only run.

UA coach Larry Ray called UL's seeding "a joke. If they were going to be in this region it should be as a two seed. They're a World Series-caliber type team, and to play them in the second round. … We'd have to play them some time, but I think they've been misplaced."

The rest of the story

By Brian J. Pedersen
ARIZONA DAILY STAR