ERIC M. JUKELEVICS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Arizona senior pitcher Jennie Finch walks off the field yesterday after suffering her first loss in nearly two years. The Wildcats lost to the UCLA Bruins 6-5 at Hillenbrand Stadium, snapping UA's school-record home winning streak at 70.

Finch's 60-game win streak ends with Bruins

After 17 years at the helm of the Arizona softball program, head coach Mike Candrea has learned that even the greatest streaks in his program's illustrious history must come to an end.

Yesterday, two of UA's most impressive strings of dominance came to a sudden halt after a 6-5 loss to UCLA.

Despite a terrific weekend of play that saw the Wildcats win two of three Pacific 10 Conference games, Arizona's school record 70-game home victories streak and senior pitcher Jennie Finch's 60-game winning streak both ended during a back-and-forth battle yesterday.

After handing No. 10 Washington a 1-0 setback on Friday and edging top-ranked UCLA (34-6 overall, 2-3 Pac-10) 3-2 on Saturday, No. 2 Arizona (35-5, 4-1) dug itself a deep hole against the Bruins after one inning of play yesterday in front of 3,161 fans - the largest crowd in Arizona softball history.

Following two walks and an infield single that loaded the bases, Bruin sophomore outfielder Stephanie Ramos smacked a grand slam off sophomore pitcher Jenny Gladding, just over Nancy Evans' newly hung jersey on the left-center field wall. During a ceremony before the game, Evans became the fourth player in UA history to be retired .

After managing a total of four runs over the previous two nights, and facing UCLA starter Keira Goerl and her miniscule 0.30 ERA, a young Wildcats squad faced a daunting task.

But as quickly as it had fallen behind, UA promptly strung together five hits in the bottom half of the inning to push across four runs of its own.

Back-to-back singles by junior shortstop Lovie Jung and freshman left fielder Courtney Fossatti helped to load the bases, and Gladding then worked her counterpart to an RBI walk. Two more singles by sophomore catcher Mackenzie Vandergeest and freshman third baseman Jackie Coburn brought UA within one run, before freshman center fielder Crystal Farley completed the first-inning turnaround with a high chopper over the third baseman's head that scored Gladding and evened the score at 4-4.

"That was phenomenal - that shows the guts and character of the team," said Candrea of UA's four-run answer in the first. "To me that means more than anything. Most teams down 4-0 would probably just throw in the towel, but this team doesn't do that. We never have, we never will, and I was very proud of the way we came right back."

With the game tied in the top of the second, Candrea put Finch in the circle and the All-American responded with three straight scoreless innings. The Wildcats - the Pac-10's leading defensive team - sparkled during an errorless weekend, and yesterday was no different. Coburn highlighted the day's efforts with grab after grab of line drives and hard-hit ground balls to help keep the Bruins off of the bases.

Arizona opened up a 5-4 lead in the fourth when sophomore first baseman Leneah Manuma took advantage of a Goerl fielding error and delivered an RBI single to center to score Jung and give UA its first lead of the day.

Yet the Bruins showed they could answer right back when senior catcher Stacey Nuveman finally touched up Finch in the fifth with a solo shot to right center that dented the Hillenbrand Stadium scoreboard.

It was not the last the Wildcats would hear from Nuveman.

With the game tied again and two outs in the top of the seventh, the Wildcats decided to challenge Nuveman again, and the All-American catcher blasted her second shot of the day - the 81st of her career, only four shy of the NCAA record shared by former Wildcats Laura Espinoza and Leah Braatz - in almost the exact same spot, hitting the ball off the top of the scoreboard and putting the Bruins ahead for good 6-5.

After a perfect 32-0 season during a run to a national championship a year ago, Finch dropped her first decision in nearly two years after one of the most remarkable strings of dominance in the sport's history. The loss was also the Wildcats' first at home since April 9, 2000, when Stanford prevailed over UA, 4-3, in extra innings.

"You don't want to know (how I feel)," Finch said after the loss. "You never want to lose to UCLA - the streak's out of my mind.

"It was nice, and of course it's a huge honor (to hold the record), but its over now, and we're looking toward winning the Pac-10 and a national championship."

Saturday's classic match up, which was the initial rematch of last year's NCAA championship game and was televised on Fox Sports Net, saw perhaps the nation's top two arms lock up in the circle - and neither disappointed.

Finch and UCLA senior Amanda Freed went pitch for pitch over the game's first four innings before the Bruins drew first blood on Tairia Mims two-out RBI single to center in the fifth.

With Freed in control throughout and having only allowed a bloop single through five innings, two Wildcats veterans proved that the patience and timeliness which became a staple of last season's championship team still exists in this year's squad.

After Finch roped a leadoff single down the left field line to start the sixth inning and moved to second on a sacrifice, Vandergeest - no stranger to big-game home runs - roped her ninth homer of the year, a two-run shot over the right-field fence to push UA ahead, 2-1, heading into the seventh

After UCLA junior shortstop Natasha Watley delivered a game-tying RBI single to right field in the seventh, the table was set for more of Jung's recent heroics.

For the third time in the Wildcats first four Pac-10 victories, Jung drilled a game-winning home run with a walk-off drive over the center-field fence.

Friday, on the eve of its showdown with the Bruins, Jung accounted for all of UA's offense with a fifth-inning solo homer to take care of Washington, 1-0, putting an end to what had been a pitching duel.

Gladding relieved Finch after two innings to strike out nine in five innings and worked through several jams to earn her 15th victory of the year.

"Our young kids got some big-game experience that they'll need down the road, and I thought Jennie Finch threw her butt off, obviously, in a tough, quick situation today," Candrea said of the highly competitive weekend. "We played a quality (UCLA) team, and one thing I told (Finch) is that streaks are made to be broken.

"I thought overall it was a great weekend for us, and now we have to move forward."

Arizona resumes play in the Pac-10 this weekend when it travels to Oregon for a game against Oregon State Friday and two contests with the Ducks Saturday and Sunday.