Did you hear? UCLA sports is at it again.
If not, we’ve got you covered. Here’s an overview of UCLA sports from this past week.
Baseball goes wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team for the season
No. 1 UCLA baseball (49-6, 28-2 Big Ten) came into the Big Ten Tournament with the most regular-season and conference wins in program history. The Bruins defeated No. 5 Purdue (37-20, 18-12 Big Ten) on Friday in a narrow 4-3 win to push forward and into the semifinals. In Omaha, Nebraska, the Bruins stood face-to-face with their cross-town rivals, No. 4 USC (43-15, 20-10 Big Ten), and snagged another victory, winning 7-5, just one step closer to becoming the Big Ten Tournament champions.
As the regular season came to an end, the following seven Bruins were named First Team All-Big Ten Recipients: junior shortstop Roch Cholowsky, junior center field Will Gasparino, sophomore pitcher Easton Hawk, junior first baseman Mulivai Levu, junior third baseman Roman Martin, sophomore pitcher Wylan Moss and junior pitcher Logan Reddemann. For the second consecutive season, Cholowsky was named Player of the Year by the Big Ten. After pushing his team into record-breaking wins, head coach John Savage was awarded Coach of the Year by Big Ten Baseball.
Softball champions the NCAA Super Regionals and breaks a new record
No. 7 UCLA Softball (50-8, 20-4 Big Ten) absolutely wiped out South Carolina (32-28, 7-17 SEC) in six innings, 15-1, to wrap up NCAA Regionals and move onward to the Super Regionals. The Bruins shut out UCF (41-17-1, 14-9-1 Big 12) back-to-back on Friday and Saturday, with a mercy on night one and an overwhelming 14-4 win on night two. The Bruins claimed the title as the victors of the NCAA Super Regionals, and for the third straight season, will advance to the Women’s College World Series.
These Bruins continue to make history and, after defeating UCF, broke the NCAA Softball single-season run record with 639 runs. Playing against the Gamecocks, senior right fielder Megan Grant scored her 40th home run of the year, becoming the first Bruin in program history to do so. Grant is on track to set a new NCAA slugging record, already leading the NCAA in OBP (0.650), OPS (1.983) and BB (74). Fellow senior first baseman Jordan Woolery was also named National Player of the Year by Softball America.
