The No. 12 Oregon softball team will close out the 2012 regular season in a three-game series against No. 15 UCLA beginning with Thursday’s 6 p.m. opener at Howe Field. @@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205424880@@ @@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=245&SPSID=4374@@ @@http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/sns-mct-arizona-softball-cats-no.-16-in-poll-but-no.-10-20120509,0,4269537.story?page=2@@
The Ducks (37-14, 11-7 Pac-12) took two of three games from the Bruins (35-16, 11-10) when the programs met last year in Eugene, but this year’s matchup has a bit more on the line for each team. Oregon and UCLA currently sit third and fourth in the Pac-12 standings, respectively, with the Ducks holding a two-game lead in the loss column. @@http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?SPSID=4374&SPID=245&DB_OEM_ID=500&Q_SEASON=2010@@ @@http://www.pac-12.org/SPORTS/Softball/Standings.aspx@@
Last weekend, Oregon went 1-2 against No. 9 Missouri in a late-season nonconference series, while the Bruins went 2-1 against 16th-ranked Arizona. @@http://www.uclabruins.com/sports/w-softbl/sched/ucla-w-softbl-sched.html@@
For her part, Oregon junior outfielder Samantha Pappas has been on a roll offensively over the past few weeks. In five games last week — three against the Tigers and a doubleheader with Seattle — she led the team in hitting (.643), hits (nine), doubles (four) and home runs (two).
Meanwhile, UCLA brings plenty of its own offensive firepower to the regular-season finale. The Bruins lead the conference in collective batting average (.349), hits (474), doubles (83) and home runs (79), but they also have the second-worst team earned run average in the league. @@http://www.pac-12.org/portals/7/images/softball/stats/2012/HTML/lgteams.htm@@
“We know they’re not going to steal a lot of bases,” Oregon head coach Mike White said. “It’s going to be slug-’em-out-type softball. The key for us is to minimize the free passes we give, like walks, hit batters and errors. If we can minimize that, and we can score like we’ve been doing, we should be OK.”
Individually, UCLA’s Stephany LaRosa leads the team with a .455 batting average to go along with 75 hits, 60 RBI, 16 home runs and three triples on the year. @@http://www.pac-12.org/portals/7/images/softball/stats/2012/HTML/ucla.htm@@
In the pitchers circle, Oregon’s Jessica Moore (25-11, 2.30 ERA) will match up with UCLA’s Jessica Hall (18-11, 3.12 ERA) in tonight’s opener. Duck freshman Karissa Hovinga (12-3, 3.12) and the Bruins’ Ally Carda (13-4, 3.36 ERA) will likely face off in Friday night’s contest.