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Features Projected Regionals Photo Galleries 1/28: It's Not Baseball For Girls 1/28: Keeping The Watch 1/29: Taryne Up The Competition 1/29: One Man Down 1/30: Once And Again 1/31: New Name, Same Game 2/1: Crowding The Mound 2/1: Getting Better Without Age 2/2: Backing Up The Best 2/3: Pre-Season Last To Post-Season Berth? 2/4: Into The Big Pond 2/5: Weapons In The Tide 2/6: Transforming The Game 2/6: New Conference On Deck 2/7: Right Where She Belongs 2/8: Bringing The World To The Series 2/8: Planning The Pre-Conference Season  Conference Breakdowns  1/29: Pac-10 Conference 1/29: Big West Conference 1/30: Big 12 Conference 1/30: Mid-American Conference 1/31: Southeastern Conference 1/31: Western Athletic Conference 2/1: Conference USA 2/1: Sun Belt Conference 2/2: Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference 2/2: Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
2/2: Colonial Athletic Association 2/2: Ohio Valley Conference 2/3: Ivy League 2/3: America East Conference 2/3: Southern Conference 2/3: Atlantic Sun Conference 2/3: Southland Conference 2/4: Big East Conference 2/4: Patriot League 2/4: Atlantic 10 Conference 2/5: Missouri Valley Conference 2/5: Atlantic Coast Conference 2/6: Big South Conference 2/6: Mountain West Conference 2/7: Horizon League 2/7: Big Ten Conference 2/8: Pacific Coast Softball Conference 2/8: Summit League 2/8: Northeast Conference 2/8: Southwestern Athletic Conference

 

 

Jan. 29, 2008

By Carolyn Braff

CSTV.com

CAROLYN BRAFF
Carolyn is an assistant editor and writer for CSTV.com.
E-mail         ---   Column Archive   --- SOFTBALL 3/7: Return Of The Terps 2/29: (Two And) Oh, Canada 2/15: Throwing Off The Rust 2/8: Northeast Conference Preview 2/8: Summit League Preview 2/8: Planning The Pre-Conference Season 2/8: Bringing The World To The Series 2/8: Bruin Magic In Numbers 2/7: Horizon League Preview 2/5: ACC Preview 2/5: MWV Preview 2/2: Backing Up The Best 2/2: Defense Will Anchor Hofstra's Next Title Run 2/2: Tech Going For Seventh Straight OVC Title 2/1: Getting Better Without Age 2/1: Crowding The Mound 2/1: Sun Belt Preview 2/1: Cold Weather Winners 1/31: New Name, Same Game 1/29: Arizona Is One Man Down 1/28: It's Not Baseball For Girls 1/24: Modeling The Right Role FOOTBALL 01/15: Getting Somewhere 1/7: The Home Team vs. The Road Warrior 1/1: Singing The Maize And Blues 12/27: Up-Downs For Texas 12/18: Lying In Wait 12/11: Warrior Green: The New Boise Blue 12/8: Best Of The Rest 12/4: A Winning Preparation 11/27: Easy Road To The Big Easy 11/20: Running The Backup and Crashing 11/13: Least Common Denominators 11/6: Throw The Ducks A Bone 10/30: Boise Is Back 10/23: They've Got Guts 10/16: Kansas Full of Cupcakes 10/9: Pay Attention To The Men Behind The Curtain 10/2: Not-Such-Surprises 9/25: Irish Inflation 9/18: The Star and The Slump 9/11: Four's No Crowd 9/4: Unmatched Matchups 8/22: No Peterson, No Problem For Oklahoma 8/22: Catch Him If You Can 8/21: Running A Reverse 8/20: Big 12 Conference Preview 8/8: Still No Cigar 8/8: Going and Coming 8/8: C-USA Conference Preview 6/17: Pennsylvania Wins Not-So-Big 33 LACROSSE 5/5: Tigers Limp Into Playoffs 4/7: Home, Sweet Home 3/3: Hoyas Hold On For Another Win 2/16: Accelerating Development 2/15: One More Chance For This Mid 2/12: Wildcats Favored For Three in a Row BASKETBALL 3/16: Bubble, Bubble, Teams In Trouble 3/21: Winona State Still Streaking in Postseason 3/19: Cruising to Perfection 1/14: Penn Has The Tempo To a T 1/12: Columbia Thwarts The Three, Downs Princeton FENCING 3/25: A Rematch to Be Remembered 3/23: Columbia Hopes to Take Two CROSS COUNTRY 9/7: Luck Be A Lambie 9/4: Bringing Charm To The Farm 9/4: Breaking In 9/3: Room to Run GOLF 6/13: Looking The Part

Just how important is a coach to a softball team's success? Defending national champion Arizona is about to find out.

For more than two decades, Mike Candrea has been synonymous with Arizona softball supremacy. In his 21 years coaching the Wildcats, Candrea has stockpiled eight national titles, more than 1,100 victories and 19 trips to the Women's College World Series, not to mention the gold medal he earned coaching the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 with four former Wildcats on the roster.

There is no question that Candrea brings magic to Hillenbrand Stadium, and now that the head coach has embarked on a nine-month leave of absence to coach the U.S. Olympic team, the two-time defending national champs will have to find their way back to the WCWS without him.

"It's going to be hard," senior catcher Callista Balko said. "He really does know how to prepare a team."

"Just his presence here has taught us so much," senior pitcher Taryne Mowatt said. "Having him there watching us makes you push yourself to impress him. But I don't think his absence is going to affect us in a negative way. His not being there leaves an opening spot for the seniors to step up and guide the younger players."

Arizona's six seniors will not have to do all the guiding alone. Assistant coach Larry Ray has assumed the title of interim head coach with 26 years of experience behind him, 17 of them at Arizona. He is particularly familiar with the interim tag, as it was Ray who coached the Wildcats the last time Candrea put on his Olympic uniform.

Four years ago, Ray led Arizona to a 55-6 record and the Pac-10 championship, but what national title-jaded Arizona fans remember most from the 2004 season is its premature ending. In the last 19 years, the Wildcats have missed a trip to the Women's College World Series only once, in 2004, when Ray was captaining Arizona's ship.

"We had a pretty successful year," Ray said of his 2004 coaching campaign. "We just unfortunately had a key injury at the end that prevented us from getting to the World Series. But I feel very confident that this team has confidence in me and I have confidence in them. I think that as long as we're able to do the things that we want to on a daily basis, the end result will take care of itself."

Despite the near-spotless record and conference championship, the results of the 2004 season have some of Arizona's most ardent supporters a bit apprehensive, but the 2008 team is more interested in looking forward than in scrutinizing the past.

"It all depends on the team," Balko said. "We have a totally different group of girls this year. Coach Candrea has left an impact on us seniors. We're very well prepared and we know what it takes to win."

Despite Ray's accolade-filled resume, including four years as the first-ever head coach at the University of Florida, where he was named the 1998 SEC Coach of the Year, he is not Candrea, and the 11 upperclassmen on the team are well aware that they must step into larger leadership roles this season.

"Coach Ray has some big shoes to fill, but he's done really well in years past," Balko said. "I think that year [2004] was a good learning experience for Coach Ray. He'll have a better grip on things, but our coaches are going to rely a lot on us to take care of things off the field. We have to step up and be better examples."

What type of example they will set may be new this season as well, as Candrea and Ray bring slightly different coaching styles to the dugout.

"I'm maybe a little bit more aggressive," Ray said. "I'll put runners in motion more often. He has such confidence in the hitters in that he'll rely on them to come through. I'm a little bit more on the side of wanting to make things happen, as opposed to waiting for that person to get the base hit."

Ray's aggressiveness may be key to the Wildcats' quest for a third straight title. After graduating the team's top three hitters last season -- one of whom now joins Candrea on the Olympic team -- the Wildcats have enormous holes to fill at second base, shortstop and center field, not to mention the top of the lineup. But Ray is not worried. He attributes Arizona's continued success to the team's consistent ability to make its whole greater its parts, and this year will be no exception.

"We didn't have the best talent at the College World Series, but we had the best team," Ray said. "The young ladies believed in one another and supported one another and that was a big key. But all the returners are going to have to have a better year than they did last year in order to make up for the big losses offensively."

"Team chemistry will be huge," Balko agreed. "The last two years that we did win, we had great chemistry. We were kind of scrappers -- we weren't the biggest team out there, we weren't the strongest, but instead of falling when we were behind, we fought back."

One day that the Wildcats are sure to do plenty of fighting is Feb. 19, when Candrea returns to Tucson in the opposite dugout, coaching the Olympic team against Arizona in a much-anticipated exhibition matchup.

"That will be something that the young ladies are looking forward to, to match themselves up with the best in the world," Ray said. "Looking at his dugout, there's no way [Candrea] can make a bad decision. He's got the best players in the world almost at every position, so trying to put a little chink in that armor is going to be interesting, but that's what makes this game so interesting -- you've got to find those chinks in the armor."

The last time Ray took the reins at Arizona, an injury proved to be the chink in the Wildcats' armor. This time around, the team will fight to keep that armor intact, earn their third straight national title and prove that Mike Candrea may be synonymous with Arizona softball, but winning is their more powerful parallel.