UCLA Softball Staff Recognized Among Best in Nation

Led by head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, the UCLA Bruins softball coaching staff was named the 2025 NFCA Division I West Regional Coaching Staff of the Year on Friday morning. This is the second straight year the staff was honored with this award.

The Bruins were one of 10 regional coaching staffs honored are now eligible to be named the National Coaching Staff of the Year.

Inouye-Perez has led the UCLA coaching staff to eight of these awards in the 19 years she's been at the helm in Westwood.

UCLA finished the season with a 55-13 overall record and attended its 33rd Women's College World Series in program history. The Bruins lost to the Tennessee Lady Vols in a controversial extra-inning thriller that sent shockwaves around college softball.

In what would eventually be a 5-4 Lady Volunteers win over the Bruins in last weekend's Women's College World Series elimination game, Grant sent a towering two-run home run to right field to tie the game with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

As Grant rounded the bases, celebrating, she stepped over home plate while jumping in her dugout's celebration circle before being guided back to the bag by Bruins catcher, Alexis Ramirez. By law, because Grant passed home plate and was later assisted back to touch it by a player from the dugout (Ramirez was up next to bat), the home run would have been nullified and UCLA would have lost the game right then and there.

However, after upwards of 20 minutes of review time, NCAA officials upheld the ruling on the field and counted the home run according to Appendix G of the NCAA Softball rulebook, that states the play was unreviewable and not subject to video review.

The decision was subject to a lot of confusion, but mostly criticism, especially from Tennessee head coach Karen Weekly.

"I think everybody but four people saw the play at the plate,” Weekly said after the game. “We saw in the dugout she had missed the plate and we saw her teammates had kind of pushed her back. By rule, that should have been nullified. ... We went to the umpire and said, ‘This is what happened.’ Then they did their thing.”

Tennessee eventually lost to Texas in the final round, coming up just two runs short of making it to Oklahoma City on Wednesday.