Arizona softball begins its final series of the regular season on Friday afternoon. The Houston Cougars (22-21, 4-15) are on the schedule before the No. 12 Wildcats (40-10, 14-7) head to Oklahoma City for their first Big 12 Conference Tournament.
The first major news is that the schedule has been changed for the first game between Houston and Arizona. The game was scheduled to be played at 4 p.m. MST on Friday, May 2 in Houston, Tex. It has been moved up two hours to 2 p.m. MST on Friday, May 2 due to rain in the forecast. It will still stream on ESPN+.
What else is happening in and around the program as the team prepares for the postseason?
On new rivals
At the team’s preseason local media day, four players were asked who they saw as a new rival in their first season of the Big 12. Three chose Oklahoma State. It was understandable. The Cowgirls have been to the last five Women’s College World Series that have been held, stretching back to 2019. They got to the final 2024 tournament by knocking out Arizona in the Super Regionals.
One player was different, though. Centerfielder Regan Shockey chose Texas Tech. TTU wrapped up the Big 12 regular season title last week by going 2-1 against ASU. The Red Raiders also defeated Arizona 2-1 in their series two weeks ago.
It wasn’t a surprise for Shockey, but it does provide motivation.
“I just knew they were going to be competitive, too,” Shockey said. “And I mean, obviously, they have the greatest pitcher in softball at this moment, and they got great transfers, so I knew they’d be a great battle, and everything they got, they deserve. So I just think it just pushes us a little harder to know that…we could be a little more in those games than we were, and that we have it in there to compete and fight.”
On conference standings and tournament seeding
TTU wrapping up the top seed in the Big 12 tournament leaves Arizona a No. 2 seed, at best. If the Wildcats sweep Houston on the road this weekend, no one can pass them. However, it is possible for them to drop as low as fourth.
Many pollsters placed them third coming into the season. If they end up there, it wouldn’t be behind the team everyone expected.
Many preseason media polls had Arizona behind Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. The Cowgirls haven’t lived up to billing—although they still have an outside chance of passing Arizona—but there is an upstart in a much stronger position nipping at the Wildcats’ heels.
Iowa State is just one game behind UA in the standings. The Cyclones are 13-8 in league play, barely trailing Arizona’s 14-7 record. Unlike the Wildcats, the Cyclones close at home. They will host a disappointing Baylor team that was expected to be in the top half of the league. Instead, the Bears sport a 10-11 league record and sit in seventh.
Arizona holds the tiebreaker over Iowa State by virtue of their records against BYU, so the Cyclones need to win two more games than Arizona does this weekend to pass them in the standings. While the Wildcats are on the road, they will face the last-place team in the conference. Houston is just 4-15 against league foes.
As for Oklahoma State, the Cowgirls need to sweep the weekend series against Utah and have Houston sweep the Wildcats to pass the new member of the league. OSU would end the season with a .590 winning percentage compared to UA’s .583. The advantage OSU has is that it will be playing at home.
Arizona has won at least one game against every conference team it has faced. Does the seed matter in the conference tournament?
“Honestly, it’s kind of like the regular tournament, too,” said Arizona head coach Caitlin Lowe. “You get a draw, and then it’s executing within your draw. Sometimes you have control. Sometimes you feel like you have a little less control over that. And it’s just, I think we’ve been working really hard on being where our feet are and competing in the moment, and I really don’t care what’s handed to us. I do care that we finish strong, though, because a lot of the seeding is in our hands right now. So I think that’s an important point…if we take care of business, we will be a two seed, and then have more control in that way.”
Arizona will not start play until May 8 as long as it finishes in the top five, which it is guaranteed to do. The tournament begins on Wednesday, May 7 for the teams seeded 6th through 11th.
On the inaugural AUSL draft
The Wildcats’ game isn’t the only thing to keep an eye on this weekend. Devyn Netz received her “golden ticket” to the inaugural Athletes Unlimited Softball League draft at Arizona’s last homestand. This weekend, she will learn which of the four teams in the league will claim her rights.
The AUSL will have its college draft on Saturday, May 3. The show will air on ESPNU beginning at 6 p.m. MST.
The four teams will play games in 10 cities this summer in a regular league format. That will be complemented by the AUSL All-Star Cup, which includes 60 players who play for individual points on teams that change each week.
On robbing home runs
Arizona’s outfielders have robbed a few opponents of home runs this season. Shockey had another big one last week that turned into a game-saver.
The centerfielder reached over the wall to bring one back into the park in the bottom of the fourth. It kept Arizona’s game against San Diego State at 0-0 and enabled the Wildcats to win 1-0 on a solo home run in the top of the seventh by Netz.
“It just really emphasizes how important your pre-game is, and how serious you take those live reads we take before in BP, and just truly locking in before the game even starts,” Shockey said.
On the role of NCAA softball in preparing the USA men’s national team
Former Arizona catcher Dejah Mulipola has become a staple of USA Softball’s women’s national team. She was once again named to the team last week. She’s not the only one linked to Arizona softball who is part of Team USA, though.
Men’s fastpitch isn’t as well-known or widely played in the U.S. as in some other countries. Softball certainly doesn’t have the number of male participants that baseball does. That makes NCAA women’s softball an important resource for young men who play for Team USA. Arizona freshman manager Griffin Boucher is one of those young men.
“I love how fast-paced it is,” Boucher said. “I think baseball, it was just too slow for me…I love just all of the different pitches you can throw, that your ball is just gonna move no matter how you throw it, and I think it’s just such a fun game to watch.”
Like former Arizona manager Greg McQuillin, Boucher was a baseball player who got into softball because of his sister. For McQuillin, it was helping his older sister Taylor train to become a top pitcher for Arizona, Team Mexico, and the pro ranks. For Boucher, it was helping his twin sister’s youth teams train when the pair was younger.
“We come from this area that softball was just the sport of the town,” Boucher said. “So ever since she was little, I would go to all of her practices, and the coach would make me practice with them, just because he said that softball would help me in baseball in the long run.”
When the pandemic hit, most of the local baseball leagues near his hometown of Kaukauna, Wis. were shut down.
“One of my friends thought it would be fun if we joined a men’s fastpitch tournament,” Boucher said. “And I was like, yeah, I’ve always wanted to play softball. I used to practice it when I was little, and so, I’ll be the pitcher. So I started pitching when I was 13, and that’s when I got recruited for Team USA to be on the U18 team, and we went to Colombia this past summer, and then we won gold there, and I started at second base.”
There is no central training facility for the men, so they train on their own. That makes being part of the staff of an NCAA women’s team helpful. Boucher said that many of his teammates are managers at various schools. His best friend from the team is at LSU.
The national team competes every other summer. There is no competition this year, but it doesn’t mean Boucher won’t be involved in softball after Arizona’s season is over. During high school, he served as a sort of volunteer coach for the school team. Now, he helps coach a club team during his free summers.
A note from the writer on traveling to the Big 12 Softball Tournament
I am traveling to cover Arizona’s first appearance in the Big 12 Softball Tournament next week. While air travel to cover the Pac-12 tournament in the Bay Area last season was relatively inexpensive, getting to Oklahoma City is more costly. That has put me in the position of needing to raise funds to help ease the travel costs, especially since I covered much of the cost of going to Kansas City for the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Tournament a few months ago.
In the past, I have done crowdfunding to help cover costs to go to OKC for the Women’s College World Series. The last one was in 2022. Readers were gracious enough to donate far more than I asked to that campaign. That helped me defray travel costs to other events, like covering a women’s basketball game at New Mexico a few months later and various Arizona women’s sports in Tempe.
I am running another smaller campaign for the conference tournament this season. If you are able and willing, you can donate at my GoFundMe. There are also links to my CashApp and PayPal accounts in the GFM campaign, if you prefer those.
Any help, no matter how small, is very much appreciated. Even if I don’t meet the target, everything helps. If I get more than I asked for, it will be used for future travel to other events. Hopefully, that includes another trip to the WCWS this year.
To those who have already donated, thank you so much. If you can’t donate, I am still incredibly grateful that you read and talk about softball here. Keep coming back!
-Kim Doss
Lead photo by Ryan Kelapire