Arizona Softball looking to find their way under Caitlin Lowe

With the 2022 Arizona Softball season well underway at this point, the Wildcats still seem to be adjusting to Caitlin Lowe as head coach. 

The 2022 Arizona Softball season has been unlike any other, as for the first time since 1985, Mike Candrea is not coaching the team. Beyond that, the Wildcats have somewhat stumbled out of the gates this year. The team currently sports a 21-14 record, and even more uncharacteristic, the Wildcats are just 2-10 in conference play.

With just 18 games left on the season, Arizona finds itself in rare territory as the team currently sits in last place in the loaded Pac-12 Conference, and things don’t get any easier either with marquee matchups against Oregon, Stanford, and others still looming.

In short, Arizona Softball is in a tough spot, and the Wildcats are in danger of not only finishing in last place in the Pac-12 but missing the postseason altogether.

Coming into the season, there was a bit of a transition to be expected with the program. After all, Arizona was breaking in a first-year coach, they were replacing several key personnel, and there was also a myriad of questions needing to be answered with the Cats’ pitching rotation specifically.

Well, in 35 games, those concerns have been magnified immensely, and if you were to define the Wildcats’ season in just one word, it would be inconsistency.

If Arizona’s pitching is on, the Wildcats are typically not hitting the ball well. On the flip side of that, if the Wildcats are hitting well, the pitching is off. Look no further than their 2-10 record in conference play as evidence of that.

Now granted, some of Arizona’s struggles can be chalked up to nagging injuries and personnel issues with the pitching rotation, but in reality, it is more like growing and transition pains for a team that is playing under a first-year head coach that took over for a legendary head coach.

And for the past 35 years, Arizona had had the fortunate pleasure of not being in this position. The program has been a consistent winner in a sport that has been constantly evolving and competing for conference titles and College World Series appearances had become the standard.

So naturally, as the Wildcats find themselves in this newfound situation, Arizona is still trying to find its identity at this point of the season. The hope is that the Wildcats can continue to build off their little successes, after all, that is how the program was built into being a consistent winner.