Arizona Wildcats need to ‘be where our feet are’ in Big 12 Softball Tournament

Arizona pitcher Jalen Adams delivers against Arizona State on Mar. 22, 2026 | Photo by Ryan Kelapire

Conference tournaments are the beginning of the postseason but they’re also very different than any other part of the season. Neither the regular season nor the NCAA postseason has the do-or-die nature of single-elimination conference tournaments. Teams only have to beat their opponents once, but the opposite is also true. One loss ends the run. Arizona head coach Caitlin Lowe only sees one way to approach that.

“I think what we do a really good job of when we’re playing our best softball is being exactly where our feet are in the moment,” Lowe said. “So right now we’re we’re doing our best at this interview, and then tomorrow morning, we’re going to do our best at taking our hit around in pregame BP, and we’re going to stay locked in to exactly where our feet are, because I think the moment you one, look behind you at anything that happened in the past, and two, look in front of you, that’s when you start to get lost and lose your way. So for us, it’s just putting every single ounce of energy and effort into what we’re doing in the very given moment.”

Lowe may not want to look to the past or the future, but there are lessons from the past that point the way towards what Arizona needs to do to be successful in the near future. That starts with the opening round game against Arizona State on Thursday.

Arizona currently stands at No. 19 in RPI and No. 20 in both KPI and DSR. While those are components of the seeding process for the NCAA postseason, they aren’t the sole determining factors. The Wildcats still have an outside shot of hosting regionals. A good showing in Oklahoma City could only help, especially if it were to include wins over Oklahoma State and Texas Tech. Arizona went 1-2 against both teams on the road this year.

Is that still a goal for the Wildcats?

“We don’t give up on anything ever,” Lowe said. “That’s not the Wildcat way at all.”

To get to that longer-term goal, they must be effective against three teams with one thing in common. All have at least one dominant pitcher. Texas Tech has two, although Arizona has been able to score against the Red Raiders’ No. 2 pitcher Kaitlyn Terry both this year and when she was at UCLA.

The Wildcats didn’t demonstrate that effectiveness on offense or in the circle last week at Utah, but they took lessons from that.

“We did not play our best for sure this past weekend,” said Arizona shortstop Tayler Biehl. “So knowing that if we just play our best, where we can beat anybody, and when we start to be slack off a little bit in other areas of softball, we are beatable. So I think this weekend, going into this weekend, next week, in the rest of season, just thinking about us, not thinking about them, that if we are…buying into each other, truly just playing the game how we know how to play the game, and just representing the block A with pride, I think that we will be unbeatable.”

The Wildcats went 7-11 against the RPI top 25 this year and 11-11 against the top 50. The only top 25 team it played that it did not beat at least once was Texas. It did not lose to any team ranked 26-50. So, it certainly is capable of beating anyone on a given night. What will it take to improve on that so it’s capable of taking a three-game series against that kind of team?

After almost a decade’s absence that stretched from 2011 to 2018, the Wildcats made the Women’s College World Series three straight times in 2019, 2021, and 2022. The event was not held in 2020 due to the pandemic, but they were on a good run that year, too. They missed the postseason in 2023, then returned in 2024 with a run to Super Regionals. Last year, they were eliminated in their home regional.

In two of its three WCWS runs in the past 7 years, there was a commonality. The team’s pitching came through in a big way.

In 2019, Arizona’s pitchers allowed 2.1 runs per game over an eight-game postseason, including three games at the WCWS. They had an ERA of 1.23, which was a drop from the 1.67 combined season ERA of Taylor McQuillin and Alyssa Denham and the 1.61 combined staff ERA. Even after giving up seven unearned runs in the postseason, they still allowed just 2.1 total runs per game.

In 2022, Hanah Bowen and Devyn Netz dramatically improved on their season ERA to allow just 2.04 runs per game—all earned—including three games in OKC. The two combined for a 3.61 ERA over the course of the season. The entire Arizona staff sat at 3.70. What took place in the postseason was a remake of the pitching staff.

In the 2021 WCWS run, Arizona kept its ERA in the same realm as the regular season. The trio of Denham, Bowen, and Mariah Lopez had a combined ERA of 2.18 in the regular season. It was 2.19 in the postseason, but the unearned runs killed Arizona. The trio and their defense gave up a combined 3.79 total runs in the postseason.

Once they got to the WCWS, the scoring took a dive, as well. Arizona scored a total of 4 runs over its two games in OKC and went home.

The key to getting to the promised land and advancing upon arrival is pitching. In recent years, Arizona has typically advanced to the WCWS when its pitchers improved over their season performances. They have always won at least one game when that was true. Relying primarily on offense has not produced those results, especially once getting to WCWS.

The same is likely to be true about advancing in the Big 12 Tournament. It will be a tough ask to put up big offensive numbers against a series of pitchers that are likely to be Kenzie Brown, Ruby Meylan, and NiJaree Canady. That group has ERA of 2.48, 2.03, and 1.30, respectively. Arizona will need to find a way to counter that.

“It’s about the next pitch, and we have to fight no matter what happens last inning, last pitch, it’s a clean slate,” Lowe said. “And we’re going into this tournament 0-0, just like ASU is, and it’s about who plays the best softball that day.”