KEVIN B. KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Former high school teammates Caitlin Lowe, left, and Autumn Champion, right, are tearing up the diamond once again, this time for the No. 2 Arizona softball team.

Lowe, Champion pack mighty punch atop Wildcat lineup

For an opposing pitcher, there's nothing worse than facing a team's leadoff hitter, a player who will get on base in any number of ways and rarely strikes out ÷ unless she's facing two of them.

At the top of the order for the No. 2 Wildcat softball team are freshman center fielder Caitlin Lowe and sophomore left fielder Autumn Champion, a pair of lefty slap hitters who both prepped at Foothill High School in Tustin, Calif., an All-American factory.

Both Lowe and Champion, the Pac-10 Player of the Week for Feb. 9-15, agree that this year has gone better than they had expected.

"It's gone really good. I think we work well together. It's just so much fun to have so much speed two times in a row," Champion said. "I have so much fun playing with Caitlin. I'm so glad she came here."

Acting head coach Larry Ray says the two have done "fabulous." Ray decided Lowe would bat No. 1 rather than Champion, who batted .513 and earned All-American honors last year in the leadoff spot, because the youngster is speedier.

"I knew Caitlin, with her speed ÷ and of course, Autumn, when she showed what she could do at the leadoff spot ÷ I knew it would create a lot of problems for defenses, and they have," Ray said. "They can both do more than one thing, and I've always felt that with a player like that, you can't take away everything.

"Those two have been intelligent enough and have been doing these things long enough that they take what the defense gives them. They back up a little bit. They lay down a bunt if they come in; they hit the ball by them. It's going to be really frustrating for opposing teams."

Champion is batting .533 and Lowe is hitting .484, and both have an on-base percentage of .582. Lowe was an All-American all four years of high school.

Arizona's No. 3 hitter, senior utility player Wendy Allen, is leading the team in RBIs with 40, nearly two a game, which would have ranked her fourth on the Wildcats last year.

"They've done exactly what I thought they were capable of doing, and that's getting on base and setting the stage for our 3, 4, 5 hitters, and it's showing in the stats," Ray said. "All three of those kids are getting a lot of RBIs because of what the first two are doing."

Arizona's 53 stolen bases in 59 tries have the team on pace to break the school record of 138 by the 1998 Wildcats. Lowe (20 steals) and Champion (12) lead the way for the Wildcats.

"I think we just feel we both try and get on at the same time, and hopefully one of us will get on. But when we both get on, it just works out really great," Lowe said.

Junior outfielder Courtney Fossatti, who is redshirting following ankle surgery, was an All-American last year and also played for the Foothill High Knights, the 2000 national champions.

"It sucks that Courtney didn't get to play this year. We were really excited about that, but in high school, me and Caitlin were known as Îdouble trouble,' because we were always the one and two batters," Champion said.

Champion and Lowe didn't spend as much time with Fossatti in high school because she pitched often, but they are both excited at the chances of an all-Foothill outfield.

"I think (this year's) been a little better than I thought," Lowe said. "It was fun in high school, but to come out here at the college level, with all the fans we have, it's really exciting. And it's just going to be so much better when Courtney comes back next year."

Champion is hitting .610 with runners on base and .607 with runners in scoring position. Lowe and Champion lead the team in multi-hit games with 10 each.

"Kind of my expertise as a coach is what they do, and it's fun to get them on base to turn them loose and see what they can do," Ray said. "To have two great kids like that, and you can do whatever you want to do ÷ it's kind of like the sky's the limit."

Both quickly shot down any talk of a rivalry.

"People think we do, but not really. We just laugh at it," Lowe said.

"Everyone always asks that, and we're practically best friends. We get along really good. I mean, on and off the field, we have fun," Champion said.

The other Wildcats from Foothill were Michelle Churnock, who graduated from high school in 1995, and Lauren Bauer, in 1997.

"Right now, they're on pace to be as good as any 1-2 punch we've ever had, and we've had some awful good ones here," Ray said. "I think if you look over the years, a lot of our All-Americans have come from that 1-2 spot, so I don't think that will change. Caitlin and Autumn will be right up there, but time will tell."

Is power hitting up next for "double trouble?" Lowe has two home runs already and Champion just got her first extra-base hit last weekend.

Champion's double didn't exactly bounce over the fence. It was a bunt double, where she raced to second before No. 22 South Florida could get the base covered. Last year, she was fourth in the nation in hits, all singles.

"I laugh about it, I make fun of myself," said Champion, laughing. "I'm still working on my double. At least I have a double ÷ one double now."