Saying there is a display of bats at Hillenbrand Stadium takes on a slightly different meaning this weekend.
The top-ranked UA softball team's game against Long Beach State Saturday night almost seems to be a celebration of the team's bat strength.
The traditional major-league promotional event of Bat Night hits the stadium, where 500 minia-ture bats will be given out. And fortunately for parents of hyperactive children, the miniature versions will bear no resemblance to the Louisville Slugger aluminum the team displays on the field.
Arizona (40-2, 10-0 in the Pacific 10 Conference) has hit 60 homers this season, easily destroying the previous NCAA record of 40 that Cal State-Northridge hit last season.
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Shortstop Laura Espinoza continues to maintain a strong campaign to upgrade her status as a second-team All-American last year to a first-team selection this year.
Espinoza has esta-blished NCAA records for career RBI (164), season RBI (72) and season home runs (22) this year. The most frightening thing for opposing teams is that Arizona has 18 more regular season games before the NCAA regionals begin in late May. And Espinoza has another year.
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With her three four-hit wins last week, senior pitcher Susie Parra (18-1) earned Pac-10 pitcher of the week honors for the third time this season and first since early March. She also hit two homers over the weekend.
Parra is the only Arizona pitcher to garnish that award but the conference's player of the week honors have been awarded to four different UA players at six different times this year.
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First baseman Amy Chellevold established the UA single-season record for runs scored with 11 over the weekend to give her 56 on the year. Sophomores Leah O'Brien and Jenny Dalton follow with 51 each for third on the Arizona list.
The Wildcats have scored 344 runs in 42 games compared to their opponents' measly 73 runs, one more than Espinoza has brought home with her bat.
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Behind the Wildcats' .391 batting average and ability to come-from-behind with runs in late innings is Arizona coach Mike Candrea, who can constantly be found throwing practice in the batting cages down the left-field line.
Candrea spoke this week on the art of hitting: "Hitting plays a mental game with you. If you look at hitting, the best hitters are failures seven out of 10 times. If you're a brain surgeon and you're successful 30 percent of the time, you would not be a very good brain surgeon. Yet if you're successful 30 percent of the time as a hitter, you're successful.
"Dealing with those 70 percent can sometimes make or break hitters," he said. "In a ball game, you may have three at-bats and look terrible in the first two at-bats, but my biggest thing with these kids is you have to stay on top of it mentally because it may be that one hit in the last at-bat that may make a difference in a ball game."