By
Brett Erickson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wildcats return 8 seniors, 6 All Americans from last season's team
Editor's Note: For a complete position-by-position breakdown of the 2001 softball team, be sure to read tomorrow's Wildcat.
By most teams' standards, last season was a banner year for the Arizona softball program.
The Wildcats finished a half-game behind top-ranked Washington for the Pacific 10 Conference title, compiled an overall record of 59-9, won the Region 2 tournament to advance to the College World Series for the 13th straight time and finished third in the country.
Of Arizona's nine losses, only one - a 2-1 setback to unranked New Mexico State on March 28 - came to a team ranked lower than ninth in the nation. Perhaps the only blips on the Wildcats' 2000 radar screen were four regular season losses to No. 1 Washington, but Arizona cleared that hurdle in the CWS by eliminating the Huskies.
But at Arizona - a school which claimed five national championships in the 1990s - it's the last game that counts most. In last year's CWS semifinals, the Wildcats were defeated 1-0 by eventual national champion Oklahoma, ending Arizona's season one game earlier than anticipated.
In the last three seasons, in fact, Arizona has finished second ('98), third ('00) and fourth ('99) in the nation.
With last year's disappointing loss to the Sooners in the back of their minds, this season's team has its sights set on reaching the goal it had hoped for seven months ago.
"I think this team is on a mission, I really do," head coach Mike Candrea said. "This senior class is the first senior class since 1991 that has not won a national championship, so I think they understand what's ahead of them. They know what it takes."
Candrea's eight seniors have been honored and decorated in every way, but one piece of hardware is noticeably absent from their time at Arizona. The senior class - which includes pitcher Becky Lemke, outfielders Lauren Bauer and Nicole Giordano, third baseman Toni Mascarenas and catcher Lindsey Collins - would love to leave the program as national champions.
"That would just be the best thing because we have worked so hard," Lemke said at yesterday's media day. "We've worked our tail off, so it would be disappointing (not to win a championship)."
Senior shortstop Allison Andrade, who transferred to Arizona last season from West Valley Junior College in Saratoga, Calif., said a difference between this season's team and last year's squad is composure.
"I think we kind of psyched ourselves out knowing that we were that close to winning it last year," she said. "This year I think we're going to go into the season much more relaxed."
While players were careful yesterday in describing their high confidence level, they have plenty of reasons to be excited about this year's team. The Wildcats - along with UCLA - were chosen last week by Pac-10 coaches to finish first in the conference.
Both Lemke (30-7 last year with a 1.15 ERA) and junior All-American pitcher Jennie Finch (29-2, 0.79) return in the circle after dominating hitters last season. Also back for Arizona are Collins, Andrade, Mascarenas, Bauer and Giordano.
The only key players gone from last season's team are second baseman Katie Swan and right fielder Chrissy Gil.
Another player expected to play a big role for the Wildcats this season is first baseman Leneah Manuma, who redshirted last season. Manuma will play first base when Finch pitches.
Even with their offensive leaders in batting average (Giordano, .436), runs scored (Bauer, 58), home runs (Finch and Collins, 16), RBI (Collins, 68) and stolen bases (Bauer, 38) back for a run at the title, players believe the biggest asset on the team is leadership.
Mascarenas said the seniors provide the rest of the team with a winning example.
"I know all eight of us coming here had a lot of experience with winning, playing our top games, and I think that spreads throughout the team, and other players can feed off that," she said.
Andrade agreed.
"We don't really have just one captain, we have a strong eight captains, which will help leadership-wise," she said.
For Candrea, an important part of his role on the team comes in making sure his players stay focused on winning games, not championships. The latter, he hopes, will come by taking care of business on a day-by-day basis.
"The biggest thing right now for me is to make sure they stay relaxed and play the game and don't make more out of it than it really is," said Candrea, who is in his 16th season as the UA softball coach. "I like this group. I think they have done a good job in maturing and taken the strides they've had to in order to get their faces rubbed in the dirt a few times and understand that nobody is going to give it to us."
Another responsibility for the coaching staff is to make sure the players don't buy into the preseason hype that comes with having such a talented team.
"We need to continue to work hard, and we need to make sure we're not reading our newspaper clippings and starting to believe them," Candrea said. "It's alright to read them, but if you start believing how great you are, then you're vulnerable."
Until the Wildcats get another chance at an NCAA title May 24 in Oklahoma City, they said they plan on listening to their coach and approaching the season one game at a time.
And while the team is not underestimating the rigors of a 60-game schedule in the always-competitive Pac-10, players are not shying away from thinking of their ultimate goal.
"It would just be a great way to go out," senior right fielder Erika Hanson said. "We've been on a mission, it's just kind of been a long mission."
For Finch, winning a title for the team's seniors would be the ultimate accomplishment.
"I just want that more than anything for them, and they deserve to have a ring."
