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  MICHAEL MANTEL Senior pitcher Amanda Freed rebounded from her first loss this season with a near no-hitter.

By Vytas Mazeika

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

On the schedule for the UCLA softball program there’s no longer an event called the Easton Classic. Instead the Bruins start a new tradition in 2002 with the Stacy Winsberg Memorial Tournament.

First pitch is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday.

“Emotionally, it’s an important tournament because we renamed it in honor of a former Bruin who passed away this year,” UCLA head coach Sue Enquist said in reference to Winsberg, a softball player at UCLA in the early 1980s who died of cancer in December. “So the tournament itself has a special meaning for us.”

In a technical sense, Enquist isn’t concerned about the tournament as a whole, but rather on the progress her team makes as it attempts to resurrect itself from a recent lull.

The top-ranked Bruins (17-2) have lost two games to non-conference opponents in a span of a week after winning 52 such regular-season contests.

Three errors on Wednesday accounted for all five unearned runs allowed by the Bruins in a split against Cal State Fullerton.

“Offensively, that stuff comes and goes,” said senior infielder Stacey Nuveman, who led the Bruins with seven home runs, 30 RBI and a gaudy 1.113 slugging percentage. “Pitching is a whole other game, but defense, you control that. If you are focused in and ready to go, you’re not going to make errors. So that is really, for us, what we are focusing on. That is our big thing.”