Entering College World Series, softball team comes full circle

TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama softball program will come full circle this week when the Crimson Tide plays Arizona State in a first-round game at the Women’s College World Series.

Alabama earned its first-ever trip to the eight-team national championship event in Oklahoma City, Okla., in eight years ago by beating the Sun Devils twice in their own stadium in an NCAA regional. Now the Tide is making its fifth trip to the WCWS and looking to win a first-round game for the first time.

Alabama head coach Patrick Murphy was in his second year as head coach when Alabama upset Arizona State in 2000, winning 4-1 and 3-1 after beating Florida Atlantic and Penn State in extra innings to advance to the regional finals. That regional put the Alabama softball program on the national map.

“We had never beaten a Pac-10 (team) up to that moment and we had to beat them twice on their field,” Murphy said. “That weekend was the power show for Alabama because we had like nine home runs in four games, won two games in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off home run.

“That propelled us. The confidence was there.”

Pitcher Shelley Laird kept Arizona State in check and the bats of Kelly Kretschman (now a member of the U.S. Olympic team), Ginger Jones, Lacy Prejean, Kelley Askew, Kristi Frenier and Paula White proved too hot to stop.

“It was fate, it seemed like,” Murphy said. “I kept telling them all the time, this is fate.”

Murphy remembers he got a phone call from Arizona State’s baseball coach — named, coincidentally, Pat Murphy — wishing the team well before the start of the regional.

“I thought that might be a sign, too,” Alabama’s Murphy said. “Everything kind of worked in our favor.

“That’s all it took, that first year.”

Prejean was a freshman catcher for that Alabama team. Now she’s back as UA’s director of softball operations.

“I remember it was an eight-team regional so it felt like it took forever to get through the regional to get to the World Series,” she said. “It being my freshman year, I was probably a little innocent to how big-time a stage it was going to a Pac-10 school and beating them. They were obviously seeded No. 1 in the regional.

“Beating them at Arizona State was just incredible. I think we broke the NCAA record for home runs in a regional.”

Arizona State and Alabama met again in postseason play four years ago, when the Sun Devils came to Tuscaloosa for an NCAA regional. Alabama defeated Arizona State 3-1 in a semifinal game and the Sun Devils were eliminated the next day.

That regional proved to be a launching point for Arizona State, which has made it to Oklahoma City every year since.

“It’s kind of a twist of fate, for sure,” Murphy said.

Reach Tommy Deas at tommy.deas@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.