UConn softball blasts way to within one game of Big East title, return trip to NCAA tournament

Emma Willers had four hits, including a double, two home runs and six RBI, to lead the UConn softball team to a 12-1 win over Butler on the second day of the Big East tournament on Friday in Rosemont, Ill.

The Huskies, who beat Creighton on Thursday night, remain in the winners’ bracket of the four-team, double-elimination tournament, the winner of which gets the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. UConn plays either Creighton or Butler again for the championship on Saturday at 2 p.m.

UConn, which won the Big East a year ago and played in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 24 years, was hit hard by graduation and the transfer portal in the offseason. The Huskies started out 4-15 in the nonconference schedule.

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But an 11-game winning streak in February put them on track, and they went 18-6 in Big East play to share the regular-season title with Providence.

“Hey, Huskies find a way, right? We’ve been talking about it all year,” coach Laura Valentino said during the ESPN Plus telecast. “No matter what it takes, being gritty, running the bases hard, swinging the bats hard. … It’s been a team effort all year, (players) 1 to 21 and they’re doing a great job of working together.”

The Huskies are hitting .431 as a team in their two postseason games.

They opened the conference tournament with a 9-3 win over Creighton as Big East Player of the Year Cat Petteys put them ahead to stay with a two-run homer in the fourth inning. The Huskies, who trailed 3-0, tied the game on Caylee De Meo’s homer earlier. Kaitlyn Breslin and Ava Calciano each added two RBI to back Jessica Walter’s complete game on the mound.

On Friday, it was all UConn, with five runs in the fourth, two in the fifth and five in the sixth, capped by Willers’ grand slam. Calciano and De Meo each had two RBI, and Caprice Bohmer threw four innings in relief to get the win. Willers, a freshman from Dallas, has six homers and 35 RBI.