TUCSON - A weekend of celebration for head coach Mike Candrea's 30 seasons at Arizona came to a close on Sunday afternoon with the annual Arizona alumni game at Hillenbrand Stadium.
UA welcomed back alumni from the last 40 years for the special homecoming event.
Festivities started on Friday night with an alumni dinner and carried into Saturday, where Candrea was honored at halftime for 30 years at Arizona. Candrea, whose 1,428 career wins at Arizona are the most Division I victories in softball history, was celebrated with the alumni on the field while the Pride of Arizona formed a "30" behind him.
On Sunday, the current and former Wildcats culminated the weekend with a five-inning game at Hillenbrand Stadium. The 1975 AIAW College World Series participants, the 1995 and 2005 Pac-10 Champions and the 1996 and 2006 National Championship teams were honored during the game.
The teams were split up evenly, pitting half the current team in each dugout and splitting the alumni on the two squads.
Team Red and Team Blue tied at one in a pitcher's duel that featured just six total hits.
Nancy Bowling, Danielle O'Toole, Jennifer Martinez and Taylor McQuillin combined to hurl a perfect 2.5 innings before Vivian Holm-Hinds broke up the dualing perfect games for the red team in the bottom of the third. Holm-Hinds, who played at Arizona from 1987-90, stole second and scored the game's first run on Leah Braatz-Glover's RBI single to left.
In the fifth, after assistant coach Caitlin Lowe worked a walk off McQuillin, Robin Porter singled in a run to tie the game at one.
In the bottom of the fifth, two-time Honda Softball Award winner Jennie Finch made her return to the circle. As she did many times during her four-year career, Finch struck out the side.
Up Next: Arizona returns to action next weekend when it hosts the Arizona Fall Classic Friday through Sunday. UA opens the event with Arizona Western at 6 p.m. on Friday.
Follow Arizona Softball: For further coverage of Arizona softball, visit ArizonaWildcats.com and follow the team's Twitter and Instagram accounts (@UA_Softball).
