By Eric Wein

Arizona Daily Wildcat

Football, basketball and now softball.

Arizona has sent two highly-regarded, nationally-ranked teams to play UCLA at home during the 1992-93 school year and both times has come away disappointed.

Tomorrow, the top-ranked Arizona softball team tries its luck again.

The Wildcats (48-2, 16-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference) face the No. 5 Bruins (32-8, 13-3) in a doubleheader at Easton Stadium in Westwood, Calif.

While most of Tucson spent the night of April 2 mourning Arizona's Final Four loss to Arkansas, the UA softball team was beating up on UCLA with a 11-2 and 7-1 doubleheader sweep at Hillenbrand Stadium.

"What we did to them last time is behind us," Arizona coach Mike Candrea said. "We have to go in thinking it's a typical UCLA-Arizona game. I couldn't predict we'd run away like we did. I was very shocked we put them away so easily."

In late April last year, the Wildcats were swept by the Bruins in southern California before the Bruins went on to capture the Pac-10 championship.

A month later, the two teams met again in the title game of the College World Series and Arizona took the national championship with a 1-0 win.

In the two national championship games before, UCLA won 1-0 in 1992 and Arizona won 5-1 in 1991.

Arizona's Susie Parra pitched all three of those games against Lisa Fernandez. But Fernandez is now an UCLA assistant coach and Parra (23-1, 1.77 ERA) is off to Westwood looking for a win in her last outing there.

"It's definitely a different UCLA than we're used to," Parra said. "Lisa Fernandez was a big person in softball as a pitcher, hitter and third baseman. Any team without her assets is going to have to make a lot of adjustments."

The Bruins are three games behind Arizona in the conference race.

PITCHING MATCHUPS Ä Parra opposes DeeDee Weiman (16-4, 1.09) in the first game. Either Nancy Evans (12-0, 1.77) or Carrie Dolan (10-1, 1.90) will oppose B'Ann Burns (15-4, 1.78) in the second game.

NOTES Ä Tomorrow's matchup features the top two hitters in the conference.

Arizona junior first baseman Amy Chellevold (.497) is the current leader, followed by UCLA's Jennifer Brundage (.465).

Chellevold has a 25-game hitting streak, an NCAA-record 72 runs scored and her 91 hits are three shy of the Pac-10 record.

ùThe Wildcats will appear on cable TV once again this season.

Arizona's first game against ASU in Tempe was shown live in the Phoenix area on ASPN last week. Tomorrow's first game will be taped by ESPN for a delayed broadcast at 10 a.m. on Wednesday.

ùChildren of Hall of Famers Watch Ä UCLA's Stephanie Carew, daughter of California Angles hitting coach and 1991 Hall inductee Rod, has hit .317 as an occasional designated player. Read Next Article