OKLAHOMA CITY — UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez gathered her team around her before the seventh inning.
Heads nodded as the Bruins listened. They knew what needed to happen: a rally.
But knowing it and doing it, especially against Oklahoma ace Kelly Maxwell, proved to be two different things Saturday.
UCLA didn’t muster a runner in the seventh, going down in order as the second-seeded Sooners defeated the sixth-seeded Bruins, 1-0, in a winner’s bracket game at the eight-team Women’s College World Series.
UCLA (43-11) will face Stanford in a must-win game on Sunday at 4 p.m. PT.
The Bruins managed just two hits against the Sooners (56-6), and neither went for extra bases. Maxwell struck out 11 and held UCLA’s first three hitters in the lineup to an 0-for-10 day.
“She’s a great pitcher,” said Bruins standout Maya Brady, who went 0 for 4 and struck out three times. “She’s their ace. Obviously, they’re at this point because of her.
“Sometimes, it’s not your day. Sometimes, it’s the pitcher’s day.”
Even though the Bruins struggled to hit Maxwell, UCLA still had chances.
In the third inning, Maxwell hit the first batter and walked the second. She then struck out Brady and induced an infield pop-up from Jadelyn Allchin, which was an automatic out because of the infield fly rule. But Sooners second baseman Alynah Torres lost the ball in the sun.
It knocked off her sunglasses and hit her in the face, which sent Torres to the dugout with an injury and moved the runners up a base. Maxwell got out of the jam with a strikeout of Sharlize Palacios.
UCLA again had a runner in scoring position in the fifth inning after a walk and a sacrifice bunt. But Maxwell again got out of it with a strikeout of Brady and a flyout from Allchin.
Maxwell played escape artist in the sixth, too, when a single and walk gave UCLA runners on first and second with only one out. Maxwell got Savannah Pola to fly out to left, then struck out pinch-hitter Ramsey Suarez to end the threat.
“Our ability to slow the game down is something we’ve been good at,” Inouye-Perez said. “I didn’t see a lot of that in the early parts of the game. … But we did get some runners on and put some pressure on them, as well.”
But Maxwell never cracked.
“Kelly decided to throw one of the best games of her life today,” Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso said.
Many of UCLA’s swings and misses came when Maxwell threw offspeed pitches.
“I think it’s really important whenever you’re playing a team like UCLA,” Maxwell said of mixing speeds. “They have really good hitters, top to bottom. You always got to keep them off balance and change your timing.”
While she was befuddling the Bruins, the UCLA pitchers did the same to the Sooners much of the day.
Kaitlyn Terry started, went four innings and was solid against one of the nation’s best offenses. She allowed only three hits, struck out four and walked three.
But one of the hits she surrendered was the difference. On the first pitch of the bottom of the third inning, former St. Anthony High star Tiare Jennings rocketed the ball over the right-center field wall. It just cleared Bruin center fielder Janelle Meoño’s glove.
Later in the inning, Meoño got one. She snagged what would’ve been a home run by Sooners slugger Kasidi Pickering, crashing into the wall but pulling the ball back into the field of play.
Terry, a freshman, seemed unfazed throughout her outing, something that made Inouye-Perez compare her to former UCLA standout Rachel Garcia.
“She’s a competitor. She’s accountable. She’s developed in a very short time,” Inouye-Perez said of Terry. “But to have that confidence is something that’s tough to teach, especially on this kind of stage against that kind of offense.”
Taylor Tinsley, a sophomore, replaced Terry heading into the fifth inning, and she was stout, too. In two innings of work, she allowed only one hit and struck out two.
“They’re young pitchers,” Gasso said. “They did not come in feeling intimidated by us or anything. You knew that right from the start. They just pounded the zone, were making us chase, making us look.”
She glanced down at a box score for a moment.
“When I’m looking at these numbers, they’re almost identical with the exception of Tiare’s home run,” Gasso said. “It was quite a matchup.”
UCLA must now bounce back, something it hasn’t had to do in more than a month. Saturday was its first loss since losing at home to Arizona on April 27.
UCLA must beat Stanford to stay alive in the double-elimination WCWS.
Good news for the Bruins: They swept the Cardinal during the regular season.
“They’re a great team,” Brady said. “We faced them three times obviously, faced NiJaree (Canady, Stanford ace) twice. She’s a great pitcher. We’re just going to have to go out and have quality at-bats and be one pitch better than we were today.”
