By John Sleeper
Herald Writer
SEATLE – The University of Washington softball team is ranked sixth in the nation, has won seven of its last nine games and has tossed four shutouts in the last nine games.
Yet it may not be enough for the Huskies to host a coveted NCAA regional tournament. It’s not about wins and losses anymore.
An NCAA postseason mandate that limits travel may prevent otherwise deserving teams in the Pacific-10 Conference from hosting regionals. The Pac-10 has six teams in the top 10 in the USA Today poll, but many may have to travel to schools ranked below them to comply with the mandate.
That means that the talent-rich West Coast programs may well find themselves in the same region, battling it out for one berth in the Women’s College World Series.
“If you fly, you only fly one time zone,” UW coach Teresa Wilson said. “They increased the driving distance to 400 miles. There’s no protection for conference schools. If the NCAA mandate holds up, what you could potentially see is a UCLA, a Fullerton, a Northridge, a Long Beach State and a San Diego State in one region.”
If the Huskies even stay on the West Coast, they may have to face No. 16 Oregon State.
“What that means is that, conceivably, eight of your top 12 teams could be out of postseason play before you even get to the Series,” Wilson said. “You could see Arizona and Arizona State in the same region. So what you could see is an Arizona playing a Boston College in the second round of the World Series. That would really, really diminish the validity of the championship.”
The mandate is designed to be more fan-friendly and took effect largely to avoid what happened in the 2001 NCAA men’s basketball tournament, when USC and UCLA both were shipped to the East Coast and could have played each other, 3,000 miles away from hometown fans.
Because the overwhelming number of legitimate World Series contenders reside on the West Coast, however, the mandate favors less talented regions, such as the Northeast.
So this is the shadow under which the Huskies are playing coming into the last two weekends of the regular season.
Washington travels to play Oregon State today, then Oregon on Saturday and Sunday. Fourth-ranked Arizona State comes to Seattle May 10, followed by No. 2 Arizona for a doubleheader to close out the regular season May 11.
On the following day comes the selection committee’s announcement of the eight regional tournaments.
Washington (8-7 in the Pac-10, 39-15 overall), which missed the WCWS last year for the first time in five seasons, has shown remarkable resiliency for a team that has 15 freshmen and sophomores and only one senior.
Having started the Pac-10 schedule 1-5, the Huskies have roared back behind the pitching duo of sophomore Tia Bollinger (17-8, 1.11 ERA) and freshman Ashley Boek (16-2, 1.23). It’s a powerful offensive team that is second in the Pac-10 with 45 home runs, 31 by junior shortstop Jaime Clark and freshman catcher Kristen Rivera.
Clark’s total of 61 RBI is second in the nation. Rivera is right behind with 58.
It is an aggressive team that leads the conference with 96 stolen bases, 16 better than top-ranked UCLA. Clark leads the team with 21, followed by sophomore center fielder Rita Roach, with 20. Outfielder Becky Simpson, the lone senior on the roster, has 17 swipes, as does sophomore utility player Amanda Oleson.
Yet, the Huskies have let games get away because of inconsistent defense and bad breaks.
Three errors cost Washington in a 3-2 loss to Cal on Sunday. On April 6, ASU scored three runs with two out in the bottom of the seventh inning to come away with a 3-2 victory. And on April 24, the Huskies lost to UCLA 5-3 when the Bruins scored five runs in the bottom of the sixth, capped by a grand slam by Claire Sua.
“You just kind of look at those games and say that we don’t want to play like that anymore,”’ Rivera said. “You have to look at it as a learning experience.”
Should the Huskies win five of their six remaining games and fail to host a regional, the lesson might well be that life isn’t fair.
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