UCLA ended Arkansas’s Women’s College World Series run with an 11-0 rout in five innings Friday night, blowing the game open with a nine-run second inning and sending the Razorbacks home after their first trip to Oklahoma City.
The Bruins hit four home runs and finished the season with 206, a Division I single-season record. Aleena Garcia led off the second with a first-pitch homer, Soo-Jin Berry followed with a three-run shot, Megan Grant added her 42nd of the year and 91st career homer at UCLA, and Kaniya Bragg capped the burst with an unusual two-run double that made it 9-0 before Arkansas could steady itself.
That kind of power is why UCLA was being searched for now, and it came at the exact moment the Bruins needed it. After losing 6-3 in 10 innings to Nebraska late Thursday night in their opener, they had to win to keep playing, and they did it in the most emphatic way possible. UCLA improved to 53-9 and moved on to another elimination game Sunday at 6 p.m. against the loser of Alabama and Nebraska, a rematch path that already has the field and its bracket under a sharper lens. Read more about Alabama’s opening win over UCLA here:
Arkansas, meanwhile, left with a 47-13 record and an 0-2 mark in its first WCWS appearance. Coach Courtney Deifel said her team belonged on the stage and praised the way it handled the moment, but she also conceded what Friday night made plain: when Arkansas was not at its best, UCLA exposed it. She said, plainly, that the defeat hurt, and added that the Bruins had played a tough game.
Payton Burnham started for Arkansas but was pulled after UCLA surged to a 9-0 lead, and Robyn Herron finished the last 3 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on four hits with six strikeouts and two walks. Herron said she was grateful just to get to the Women’s College World Series and glad to end her career there, even if it was not the finish Arkansas wanted. For UCLA, the next game is the test that matters: keep the bats hot, or let this night become the high point. More on Grant’s earlier power surge is here: and the Bruins’ early strike against Arkansas here:
