During Selection Sunday, the Wildcats had to wait near the end to hear their name announced for the Columbia Regional hosted by 15-seed Missouri. Arizona (33-20) ended its regular season on a 2-game losing streak, but the overall body of work was enough to extend the program's streak of making the postseason to 35 years and the first year with head coach Caitlin Lowe.
"I feel like there's just always a lot of pressure with the unknown," said second baseman Allie Skaggs when asked if making the postseason relieves pressure off the team. "There's so much of, hey, we're gonna be right on the cusp what's gonna push us over the edge besides other teams. So now that we know that it's us, we're calm. We're here to work today and we're ready to travel to Missouri."
The Columbia Regional will feature Missouri (36-20), Illinois, Arizona and Missouri State with games startng on Friday. The Wildcats will start their postseason run against the Ilini (34-20), who ended their season on a 3-game losing streak.
Illinois finished third in the Big Ten behind Northwestern and Nebraska thanks to a pitching staff led by Sydney Sickels, who had an era of 1.97 in 138 2/3 innings of work to go along with her 186 strikeouts.
"Well, they're well-balanced teams. I think they have great pitching. They have great offensive and they're scrappy," Lowe said when asked about the teams in the Columbia Regional. "And I think that's true for one through 64. They figured out ways to win. What stands out to me is there's a lot of different looks pitching wise so it's going to be really important to make adjustments and make them fast. And I think that's all great teams, they have different looks that they provide so when they make changes we need to get on the board fast regardless of who's in the circle for them and just be tough defensively. You know, make them earn every single run that they get."
On the offensive side of the diamond, Illinois isn't a power team by any stretch of the imagination with just 28 home runs hit on the year. The Illini are a scrappy offensive team that ranked 90th in the NCAA with 4.93 runs scored a game with hitter Avrey Steiner leading the team with a .389 average. On the season they have stolen 76 bases with a steal percentage of 77% showing how aggressive they can be on the base paths.
Behind the plate for Arizona will be catcher Sharlize Palacios, who not only made first-team All-Pac-12 but was selected to the All-Defensive team with just three errors and one passed ball on the season. Palacios was able to show off her arm this season with catching 10 base runners stealing and allowing just 18 stolen bases.
"She has one of the strongest arms in the college game and the quickest release and I think the intangible for her though is she can pick you off really easily too," Lowe said when asked how Palacios will keep Illinois runners from stealing bases. "So it keeps people a little safer, closer to the bag. She creates more chaos and more opportunities for us to get lead outs too. So I think people have to think twice before stealing on her and I think she embraces more so than anything embraces the opportunity to be challenged in that regard."
Arizona will face Illinois on Friday at 1:30 p.m. (MST) with the game being shown on ESPN+. The Wildcats haven't announced who the game one pitcher will be, but senior Hanah Bowen is most likely to get the start after having postseason pitching experience last season during the teams run to the Women's College World Series.
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