UCLA softball stays alive on Jordan Woolery’s walkoff homer ...Middle East

Down to its last out with its season on the line, the UCLA softball team was right where it wanted to be.

The Bruins rallied from three runs down in the bottom of the seventh inning, with Jordan Woolery punctuating the comeback with a two-out, two-run walkoff home run for a stunning 5-4 victory over South Carolina on Saturday in an NCAA Super Regional contest in Columbia, S.C.

Woolery, who came into the game hitting .416 with 22 home runs and a team-high 82 runs batted in, crushed the first offering from South Carolina’s Sam Gress down the left-field line. The junior raised her hands while rounding first, silencing the partisan crowd and kicking off a raucous celebration at home plate.

UCLA and South Carolina will play a do-or-die Game 3 on Sunday, with time and TV still to be determined, for a spot in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City.

After the UCLA softball team’s bats were downright volcanic last week, they had suddenly gone dormant in South Carolina.

Ninth-seeded UCLA (53-11) had enjoyed three laughers on their home turf in the Los Angeles Regional, pummeling UC Santa Barbara twice and San Diego State by combined scores of 31-2.

Friday was a wake-up call as the Bruins managed eight hits but stranded eight runners in a 9-2 loss to eighth-seeded South Carolina, which jumped on starter Kaitlyn Terry for five runs in 1 2/3 innings.

The Bruins’ bats kept snoozing for much of the afternoon Saturday until Sofia Mujica got UCLA on the board with a solo home run in the fifth inning to cut South Carolina’s lead to 3-1.

Gamecocks catcher Lexi Winters was an all-day foil for UCLA starter Taylor Tinsley. Winters singled to center in the top of the first for an early 1-0 lead, then tacked on two more in the fifth with a single to left.

The Bruins avoided catastrophe in the sixth. South Carolina (44-16) loaded the bases with one out and bumped its lead to 4-1 on Quincee Lilio’s tapper in front of the plate that resulted in no play.

The next batter grounded to Savannah Pola at second, who threw home for the second out, only for the inning to end after South Carolina’s Karley Shelton, seemingly assuming the inning was over, left second base for the dugout and was called out for leaving the field of play.

Gress, who threw 3⅔ shutout innings to finish Friday night’s victory, started Saturday and kept UCLA scoreless for four innings, allowing just two Megan Grant singles and a walk. Jori Heard, who had started Friday, entered the circle in the fifth, allowing just a hit batter and a single until the fateful seventh.

Pinch-hitter Taylor Stephens drew a walk to start the frame, scoring one out later on Terry’s triple to right-center. Heard struck out Jessica Clements for the second out, but Pola drove a single to center to plate Terry.

One out from its first Women’s College World Series appearance since 1997, South Carolina opted to bring Gress back in to face Woolery, who had flied out and fouled out against Gress in their first two encounters. Hitless in six at-bats against the Gamecocks, Woolery put the ball in the air again, only this time it traveled far in the warm Columbia sky and fell on the other side of the wall, touching off powder blue-and-gold jubilation and keeping the Bruins’ season alive.

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