EUGENE -- Last summer, a couple of months after UCLA ended Oregon softball's season one victory shy of the Women's College World Series, several Ducks players began meeting regularly for conditioning workouts.

Two who attended were freshman pitcher Maggie Balint and transfer Alexis Mack. As newcomers to campus, they hadn't been in Eugene at the time of the NCAA tournament super regional loss against the Bruins. It didn't take long, however, to understand the lingering sting of the defeat for their teammates.

Before sprints, Balint said, teammates often uttered the same rallying cry, over and over: "This is for UCLA."

"We see that it really hurt them last year," said Mack, a sophomore who's hitting a team-leading .462 after spending last season at South Carolina.

It's understandable, then, that when Oregon, ranked No. 2 in the latest USA Today/National Fastpitch Coaches Association poll, visits No. 9 UCLA this weekend, the marquee three-game series will be for atonement as much as it will be for a leg up in the Pac-12 standings halfway through the conference schedule.

But there's also this: This is for an NCAA record, too.

With Oregon's doubleheader sweep Tuesday of Portland State, coach Mike White's team improved to 35-0, tying an 18-year-old record set by UCLA for the most wins to start a softball season in NCAA history. That smashes Oregon's previous school record of 18 consecutive wins and has put a team with numerous questions entering the season right back into the national championship conversation.



Oregon (35-0, 8-0 Pac-12) has won four consecutive conference titles and under White, winning big has become the norm. But the team lost 10 letterwinners, including five starters and three pitchers, to graduation after last season.

Even in a best-case scenario, no one was quite prepared for a start like 35-0.

"I knew what we had coming in and I was hopeful, but you never know," said White, who is 363-93-1 in eight seasons. "Especially with two very, very good pitchers coming in you always think OK we can keep the runs down and kind of find a way to scratch some runs. I knew we lost some power and it wasn't going to be the same kind of offense, but you just don't know until you get out there."

For example, White didn't know infielder Danica Mercado, a career .299 hitter, would hit .435 in her senior season. Nor could he have expected that the average of the country's former top-ranked recruit, Jenna Lilley, would trend the opposite direction. After hitting .382 her first two years, Lilley is mired in a .241 season, the third-lowest average on the team.

Regardless, the Ducks rank third nationally in batting average (.356), on-base percentage (.454) and eighth in slugging (.527). They've averaged 7.2 runs per game, the country's fifth-highest average, and won by run-rule 13 times despite relatively few extra-base hits. Power isn't UO's game, but consistency is, which is why UO's 15 combined hits in its last three games has White mildly concerned.

"I know we've been struggling with the bats lately, but hopefully that's a little blip," he said. "I'm hoping this is just going to be a temporary thing and get back to business and start scoring some runs."

It helps to have dominant pitching.

Oregon has weathered the graduation of its charismatic all-time wins leader, Cheridan Hawkins, with few issues -- its team ERA of 1.04 is fourth-best nationally. Freshman right-hander Maggie Balint (0.86) and sophomore righty Megan Kleist (0.98) each rank in the top 25 nationally in ERA.

Balint said her immediate success is the result of tweaks to her pitches in the fall, when coaches recognized that her three pitches all were about the same speed. She's slowed down her rise ball by focusing on adding more rotation and says she now can hit three different locations with all her pitches.

Along with fellow freshman Miranda Elish, rated the country's top recruit last year by one service, Balint said they've proven experience isn't everything.

"I think the media and people were really doubting the two freshmen coming in and that's normal to do and it's fine," Balint said. "I think we're kind of surprising people like wow, these freshmen know what they're doing and kind of figuring out what we're doing."

In the dugout, Balint is often heard yelling "opening day!" to her teammates -- the mantra she's used all season to remind herself of the power of staying in the moment.

But when you've tied the NCAA record for wins to start a season, keeping that focus is easier said than done. Especially when a win Friday against UCLA (26-9, 2-4) would clinch such a record in an especially sweet fashion.

"I think sometimes in the past we've been guilty of making some games bigger than other games and I think that may have happened last year," White said. "We kind of felt a little bit of pressure. I've talked to them about pressure is perceived. It's not really something that happens, it's just what you perceive it to be.

"Hopefully we're not going to perceive it to be a huge weekend. Just another weekend in the schedule."

-- Andrew Greif

agreif@oregonian.com

@andrewgreif