OKLAHOMA CITY — The final Pac-12 softball game ever played was the first between No. 6 seed UCLA and No. 8 Stanford at the Women’s College World Series.
Sunday night’s elimination game at Devon Park turned out to be a showcase for Stanford pitcher NiJaree Canady, who pitched a complete game three-hitter in a 3-1 win that sent the Cardinal to the semifinals.
Taryn Kern, Ava Gall and Allie Clements drove in runs for Stanford, which plays No. 1 Texas on Monday and will have to defeat the Longhorns twice to reach the best-of-three championship series. The first game is set for 4 p.m. PST.
“It was an excellent game of softball,” Stanford coach Jessica Allister said. “Great seven innings. I thought NiJaree was absolutely phenomenal. Then obviously Ava, Taryn putting good swings on good pitches.
“Coming back from a deficit. Getting a third run was really important. Really bouncing back after having a tough series against UCLA at our place in the regular season. That’s a good team. I couldn’t be prouder of the way we competed today.”
Canady, the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, struck out eight including UCLA All-American Maya Brady, Tom Brady’s niece, three times. She didn’t allow a walk while improving to 5-0 in elimination games during the postseason.
Stanford (50-16) made it interesting in UCLA’s last at-bat. Canady retired the first two hitters, then hit Savannah Palo on the hand to put a runner on first. Thessa Malau’ulu singled to put runners on first and second, but pinch-hitter Ramsey Suarez grounded out to shortstop to end the game and the season for UCLA.
The two schools had played dozens of times before Sunday but never on this stage. UCLA (43-12) had won seven straight against Stanford, including three in a row this season.
Allister described the sweep by the Bruins as “probably the low point of the season,” and said it was discussed before Sunday’s game.
“Our series against UCLA during the regular season, it was kind of a turning point in our season, where we didn’t play the way we wanted to play,” she said. “Felt like we got punched in the gut a little bit. Started to have to crawl our way back from there.”
On Sunday, Canady surrendered a second-inning home run to Megan Grant to make it 1-0. But the Cardinal scored twice in the third on a double by Kern off Bruins’ starter Kaitlyn Terry, who was lifted, and a single by Gall off reliever Taylor Tinsley, who finished the game.
In the fifth, Stanford’s Emily Jones and Kaitlyn Lim both bunted for base hits to put runners on first and second with no outs. Kern moved the runners over with a groundout and then pinch hitter Clements hit a sacrifice fly to left field to score Jones and make it 3-1.
“I feel like that’s one of your dreams as a little kid, to play at the World Series, come up in a big moment for your team, help out NiJaree, my girls,” Kern said. “So it was awesome.”
Now the Pac-12 is dissolving, with Stanford heading to the Atlantic Coast Conference and UCLA to the Big Ten.
“Yeah, it’s sad,” Allister said. “It’s just sad because it has been the greatest softball conference in the country. When you look at the history of the conference, even the present of the conference, it’s not just even really that close.
“To not have UCLA on the schedule next year, to not have Oregon and Washington and Cal — Cal will be on our schedule, that’s great. You wish it was a little bit different. At the same time, we’re choosing to lean into what the future looks like. I think college athletics, things are going to continue to change. We’re excited about playing in the ACC. We’re excited about the new rivalries that will happen there. Bittersweet, for sure.”