Taylor Tinsley<\/a> and the defense more than on Friday.<\/p>\n\u201cShe\u2019s a true competitor,\u201d Ball-Malone said of Tinsley. \u201cShe\u2019s good, and she got better as she kept going and her offense makes her really lethal, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the first, Tinsley left one bad pitch too far into the strike zone, and Evans sent the ball flying over the center-field wall. Tinsley then took a deep breath and continued. She struck out the next batter, and got a quick groundout to third base. When Tinsley ended the inning on a swinging strikeout, she ripped off her mask and screamed as her teammates poured out the dugout to give her high fives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say it\u2019s nine on one, and she truly believes that,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cShe\u2019s able to get herself back into rhythm, focus on deep breaths.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tinsley held the Knights hitless until the fourth inning when she gave up three singles. Second baseman Kaniya Bragg saved the Bruins from giving up more runs when she trapped Sierra Humphreys\u2019 single in the clay before it could reach the grass.<\/p>\n
While Tinsley had struggled to find the zone that inning, she stranded the runners, striking out one batter and eliciting a groundout to short.<\/p>\n
Her control problems reappeared in the fifth, though she wasn\u2019t the only one facing challenges. With two runners on the base, Ramirez tried to throw out a runner stealing second, but the ball slipped away from Bragg and trickled into the outfield grass. One runner scored and another advanced to third, later scoring on a foul out to left field.<\/p>\n
Despite having two outs, Tinsley gave up two singles and an equal number of walks, loading the bases and giving up another run. Central Florida\u2019s Coco Jaimes flied out to end the inning, but the Knights had scored three to cut UCLA\u2019s lead to 6-4.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team has a really great fight when all odds are against us and momentum doesn\u2019t go our way,\u201d Ball-Malone said. \u201cI think she\u2019s going to get better because she had to face us.\u201d<\/p>\n
UCF couldn\u2019t enjoy the beginnings of a comeback for long. Garcia smashed a three-run homer to right in the sixth inning. Woolery tacked on an extra run on an RBI double in the seventh and Garcia sealed it with another three-run homer to nearly the same spot. <\/p>\n
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UCLA infielder Bri Alejandre points toward the dugout after hitting the team\u2019s 200th homer of the season against UCF in the seventh inning on Saturday.<\/p>\n
(Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I didn\u2019t even realize that I even hit two home runs,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
Garcia\u2019s seven RBIs are the most in a single-game in UCLA history. Bri Alejandre hit the final home run of the night, extending the Bruins\u2019 single-season NCAA record home run total to 200. With no one left to pitch, Ball-Malone put Payne back on the mound and she finished the game for the Knights. <\/p>\n
Tinsley finished the game with 11 strikeouts, and gave up four earned runs, three walks and nine hits, marking her 24th complete game of the season and 32nd victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been a part of some really big moments, but this team has a vibe about them that is calm,\u201d Inouye-Perez said. \u201cIt\u2019s contagious, and they live for these moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 8 seed UCLA will play No. 1 seed Alabama in the first game of the WCWS on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCLA alumni roared from the metal bleachers as UCLA players jumped in the air and crowded the clay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[137067,5888,8932,10911,9251,4468,35782,48,52,51,137068,47,50,49,2668,8654,5816,137066,35780,133750,687],"class_list":["post-330310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-aleena-garcia","tag-batter","tag-bruins","tag-college-world-series","tag-home-run","tag-inning","tag-knights","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-left-field-wall","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-run","tag-runner","tag-single","tag-tinsley","tag-ucf","tag-ucla-softball","tag-walk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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