Arizona softball has undoubtedly improved this year compared to the rest of NCAA softball. Most importantly, there is no question that the Wildcats will be in the postseason after missing out for the first time in 35 years last season. The question is how the team’s stats stack up to the team that finished outside the NCAA Tournament last season.
Arizona made a lot of changes on the coaching side after last season’s disappointments. Longtime pitching coach and Wildcat great Taryne Mowatt-McKinney was out. In came young, data-driven coach Christian Conrad.
On the offensive side, Arizona was able to hire a fourth coach due to NCAA rule changes. Josh Bloomer, a coach known for an aggressive philosophy, was brought in. He had helped improve the offense at previous stops and talked about increasing the Wildcats’ stolen bases to record levels. Would he be able to improve Arizona’s offensive numbers, which have always been some of the best in the country when it comes to power and scoring runs? Would he convince head coach Caitlin Lowe that running more was a good idea, especially when she was already openly dismissing the idea before the season started?
Record
When it comes right down to it, the most important measurement of team success is wins and losses. Arizona has completed its regular season. Last year, it had two more games to play after the regular season was over, but it will play several this year.
The Wildcats were slightly better in the win column this year, winning 33 games compared to 29 last year. Of those 29 games, 28 came during the regular season in 2023. The other win was against Arizona State in the 8/9 play-in game at the Pac-12 Tournament. That’s roughly a 15 percent improvement in total wins.
Where they look much better is in the loss column. Arizona lost 25 games last season, including one in the Pac-12 Tournament. They lost 15 this year. The difference is considerable in absolute numbers, but how much of that is due to an improvement and how much is due to simply playing far fewer games is open to question.
The Wildcats did not play a major tournament this year. In 2023, they went to the Clearwater Invitational, which is always a stacked field. In 2024, all pre-conference competition came at smaller campus-based tournaments and only one was away from Hillenbrand Stadium. Arizona also played a one-off at Louisville and a doubleheader at New Mexico State, but almost all nonconference play was at home.
In conference play, Arizona was more competitive. The Wildcats were not swept this year. They won at least one game in every series. They won four series this year, including sweeping ASU.
Last season, UA won just two series. They were swept four times, losing all three games to UCLA, Stanford, Washington, and Oregon.
That amounts to a considerable improvement in conference record. The team improved from 6-18 in 2023 to 13-11 in 2024. They will end up either fourth or fifth in the Pac-12 after finishing eighth last season.
RPI and postseason prospects
What the win-loss improvement means is an improvement in RPI. Arizona was No. 22 in RPI after the games on May 2. Its only movement until the Pac-12 Tournament starts will depend on what happens with other teams around the country.
When postseason selections were made in 2023, Arizona sat at No. 47 in RPI. Regardless of how they do in the Pac-12 Tournament, they are unlikely to fall out of the top 25. That means they are essentially a lock to return to the NCAA Tournament this season.
The question is whether the Wildcats had the potential to do more than that and perhaps host regionals for the first time since 2019. While it was a longshot, their best chance was to complete the deal with a series win over UCLA. When that didn’t happen, the more reasonable question became where the committee would send them.
Rankings
The Wildcats went into 2023 with fairly lofty rankings based on their run to the Women’s College World Series the season before. Of course, that run to Oklahoma City was the result of an alignment of chances.
First, Arizona had to get into the postseason with a 33-20 record and an RPI of 45. Then, it was paired with the No. 15 seed from the SEC, which often sees its teams overseeded based on conference affiliation. Third, unseeded Mississippi State dispatched No. 2 seed Florida State. Arizona took care of a decent but unspectacular SEC team at MSU during super regionals. They competed well in OKC but went 1-2 with the only win against fellow unseeded Pac-12 team Oregon State.
Whether that made them worthy of a ranking going into 2023 is open for question, but it didn’t last too long. Arizona eventually fell out.
That led to the team being unranked coming into this season. They slowly put together wins and are now a consensus top 20 team. Of the four polls, only Softball America has them outside the top 20 at No. 22. The Wildcats are No. 18 in the NFCA and D1 Softball polls, and they are No. 20 in USA Softball’s poll.
Offense
Despite an addition of a new coach, there has been very little change in the Wildcats’ offensive numbers. In 2023, the team batting average was .329 at the end of the season. Heading into the Pac-12 Tournament, Arizona has a team batting average of .329 this season.
The on-base percentage has dipped slightly this year. It ended at .416 last season and stands at .408 after the regular season this year. The change is negligible, though. Slugging percentage stands at an identical .520.
Last season, Arizona attempted 31 stolen bases and was successful 25 times. Despite additions like Regan Shockey and holdovers like Dakota Kennedy, Arizona attempted just 39 stolen bases this year and was successful 30 times.
The 30 successful stolen bases ranked Arizona seventh of the nine teams headed into the final week of conference play. The other eight teams still had three games to play. UCLA, California, and Oregon will all end up playing fewer than 24 games due to rainouts during conference play but all but the Bruins ended up well ahead of Arizona in the stat, with Oregon at No. 1 with 81 and Cal at No. 5 with 54.
The Wildcats hit slightly fewer home runs this season with 62 going out versus 65 leaving the yard in 2023. However, with fewer games, that was a bit of an improvement on a per-game basis. They hit 1.3 home runs per game in 2024 compared to 1.2 in 2023.
The team has seen a bit of a falloff in batting averages among some key players. Third baseman Blaise Biringer has been one of Arizona’s most reliable hitters in previous years, but her average has dropped from .365 last year to .277 this season.
Allie Skaggs went from .333 last year to .307 this year and has dipped below .300 on a few occasions. Her slugging percentage has dropped from .687 to .636. She is still hitting balls out of the park, though. She has 13 home runs this year despite the team playing fewer games. She hit 14 last season. Her RBI numbers show a dip that seems to be leaguewide. She’s fourth in the Pac-12 with 42 RBI. Last year she drove in 64 runs.
Carlie Scupin is seeing a drop in her slugging numbers with a slugging percentage that has dropped from .745 to .611. That brings down her on-base plus slugging from 1.200 to 1.042. She still leagues the league with 52 RBI, though.
Olivia DiNardo has been the designated player for most of the season due to an injury, but the break from catching hasn’t helped her in the box. Her average has dropped roughly 100 points from .382 to .288. Her OBP has gone from .458 to .380. With any luck, that’s a sophomore slump that will correct itself when she’s fully healthy.
Pitching
The biggest knock on Arizona for almost a decade has been the lack of elite pitching. This year, the team adopted a more data-driven approach under the tutelage of Conrad. So far, it hasn’t made a lot of difference.
A lot will be said about the injuries to Arizona’s pitching staff. That has been a fairly regular feature in recent years, though. Sydney Somerndike was out all year after having surgery, but the surgery she had was to correct an injury she pitched through last season. Devyn Netz has been out all season, but she played a lot last season and pitched through injuries the year before.
Arizona has had a more balanced pitching attack this year with both Aissa Silva and Miranda Stoddard getting over 100 innings. Silva is at 138 1⁄3 and Stoddard is at 117. Last year, Netz pitched 171 1⁄3 innings while no one else had more than the 54 that Silva threw.
The staff ERA has dropped from 4.26 to 3.68, but it is still second-to-last in the Pac-12. Silva is responsible for most of the improvement. Netz had the best ERA at 3.88 last season. Silva sits at 2.99 this season as the team leader. She also has 21 wins, many coming in relief, compared to the 16 for Netz last year.
Those wins are an example of how the pitching philosophies have improved one stat, even if it is a questionable one like pitching wins. Arizona has taken to starting either Brooke Mannon or Stoddard. They throw for an inning or two—or until they run into trouble—then Silva relieves.
Silva is usually in line for the win because the starter didn’t pitch enough innings or the offense didn’t get going until later. It keeps Silva from having to throw as many innings as Netz did last year while also having her in the circle at crunch time.
The staff WHIP has actually increased. Arizona pitchers gave up 1.38 walks and hits per inning last year. This season, they are surrendering 1.41, which ranks fifth in the Pac-12.
There’s hope for the future, though. Arizona’s two youngest pitchers lead the team in WHIP. Sophomore lefty Silva has made a solid jump as an individual. She had a 1.44 WHIP last season. She has reduced that to 1.29 this year. Close behind her is freshman righty Mannon at 1.33. It’s certainly not threatening NiJaree Canady and her 0.62, but Silva ranks ninth in the Pac-12 and Mannon wouldn’t be far behind if she had enough innings to qualify.
Arizona pitching gave up a whopping 67 home runs last season, leading the league by a mile. It is having the same problem this season. Stoddard leads the league with 24 HR surrendered. Silva is third with 21.
The staff has given up 55 long balls. That once again leads the league. ASU is second at just six behind Arizona this season; last year the gap between the Wildcats and the second-worst staff was 20 home runs.
The per-game improvement is small, anyway. Arizona’s 55 home runs came in 49 games this season. That’s 1.1 per game. Opponents hit 67 in 54 games last year, good for 1.2 HR per game.