During the 2021 season, Arizona catcher Sharlize Palacios established herself as a feared hitter in the lineup by posting a batting average of .348 with 18 home runs and 57 RBIs in her second year with the program.

However, with the departure of seven seniors came a larger role for Palacios as one of the primary hitters in the order, and with that comes added pressure on the hitter every opponent worries about the most.

Through 29 games of this season, Palacios struggled and saw her batting average drop to .197 with 14 hits and 27 RBIs.

"I think at the beginning, it's kind of hard to tell them to pinpoint what it was," Palacios said about her early season struggles. "But I just had to get back to being simple and taking the pressure off of myself and thinking about the person behind me and the person in front of me and how I needed to get done for them."

Since the .197 start to the season, Palacios has been on a tear and seen her average rise to .298 in under a month. During that stretch, she has collected 17 hits and 19 RBIs as she has re-established herself as a featured hitter in the order.

"Confident and swagger, she's got her strut back," coach Caitlin Lowe said when asked about what has changed for Palacios. "She can hit anything in her zone, hit anything over the plate, and I thought she was doing too much in the beginning and feeling a little pressure but now she's letting the game come to her."

With a series win over Oregon and a sweep of a doubleheader against UTEP, the Wildcats have won five of their last six games and captured their first series victory of the season in the Pac-12.

In that series, Palacios had one of her better three-game stretches of the season by knocking in seven RBIs on five hits with two home runs. Overall, she now has 12 home runs and 46 RBIs.

"Well, I do have a lot of chats with my family," said Palacios on what has been the difference from the start of the season to now. "And I'm always talking with them about hitting, but I just became myself again and I didn't try to push anything that wasn't there."

With the emergence of Palacios' bat and winning their last three games in-a-row, the Wildcats are starting to put things together after coming off one of the worst stretches of games in program history. Arizona is now down the final home stretch of the season with 13 games left until Selection Sunday.

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