By
Brett Erickson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
1st-place softball team heads to Tempe to face Devils
Tonight's softball game between No. 2 Arizona and No. 8 Arizona State was supposed to be simply a showdown of Pacific 10 Conference heavyweights.
But as is the case with most UA-ASU matchups, it's turned into much more than that.
Arizona (46-4 overall, 8-2 Pac-10) enters tonight's game in Tempe riding a seven-game winning streak, including two victories against Arizona State (30-14, 5-6) two weekends ago in Tucson.
In the April 13-14 series, the Wildcats won both extra-inning games with walk-off home runs - a three-run shot by junior Jennie Finch in the first game and a solo shot by freshman Kim Balkan in the second.
Finch (20-0, 0.28 ERA) picked up wins in both games.
Tonight, Finch will go for Arizona, while ASU head coach Linda Wells said she will either throw junior Kirsten Voak or junior Erica Beach.
Wells said the two extra-inning losses are not as much of a mental factor as getting to Finch, who did not allow a run in 13 innings and has yet to surrender an earned run in 41 Pac-10 innings.
"She's pitched well all year, never mind the Pac-10," Wells said. "You have to be fortunate to put your few hits together."
Finch said she is not concerned about the Sun Devils being able to learn from what she showed them last time out.
"I have enough pitches to be OK," she said.
If Voak gets the nod in the pitching circle for the Sun Devils, it could be a motivational factor for either team.
Arizona has seen plenty of Voak's riseball and tagged her for both of its victories earlier this month.
In the second win, UA junior Lindsey Collins gave a hard stare and pointed at Voak after tying the game with a two-run homer in the sixth inning.
Collins said she did so because of adrenaline and Voak's tendency to smile a lot in the pitching circle.
Other UA players have also said Voak's on-field smiling has bothered them all season.
Wells, though, said such distractions take away from the strides the sport has made since softball became an Olympic sport in 1996.
"All that stuff, whether it's going around the bases and pointing or making negative personal comments about people, I think there's no place for it," she said. "It's not elegant. It's not classy."
Even with the off-field distractions, tonight's game has the makings of another classic UA-ASU contest.
Momentum seems to be in Arizona's favor, as ASU has lost five-straight Pac-10 games - the two to UA, one to No. 4 California and a pair of games to No. 3 Stanford.
UA senior Toni Mascarenas said she expects the Sun Devils' crowd to be every bit as rowdy and supportive as Arizona's was in the Tucson series.
"I'm sure they're going to invite people out there to heckle us and do anything they can to get in our heads," she said.
Besides last weekend's three-game sweep of Cal and Stanford, Arizona is also riding the momentum of another accomplishment. Friday, the Wildcats set the NCAA record for home runs in a season with 101.
Mascarenas leads the team with 16 long balls, followed by freshmen Leneah Manuma and Mackenzie Vandergeest, who have 15 each.
Despite the lofty power numbers, UA head coach Mike Candrea said his team can still improve at the plate, especially its aggressiveness.
"I'm just waiting one day for somebody to come out of their shoes on a 2-0 pitch," he said. "Even if they miss the damn thing, just get after it."
