megan grant

UCLA’s Megan Grant is just like every other college senior her age.

Sure, it might not seem like it from the outside looking in. After all, how can someone who has hit 89 home runs across her college career — one short of the Bruins’ record — and helped one of softball’s most dynamic offensive teams check off a list of new NCAA and program records relate to the other sociology majors in her classes at UCLA?

Grant disappears into her head sometimes, something she readily acknowledges. But her solution might not be as accessible to all the other “Twilight”-binging, video-game-loving UCLA students. She has coach Kelly Inouye-Perez keep her, the Division I home run queen, from getting caught up in the moment.

“She does a really great job with just keeping me neutral,” Grant said. “Sometimes I may get in a little crazy headspace, but she does a really great job helping me get out of those feelings that I’m stuck in, and she pulls me out and makes me realize, ‘Hey, as long as I can be who I am, that’s enough.’”

UCLA head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, left, confers with associate head coach Lisa Fernandez next to infielder Jordan Woolery during NCAA reigonal game on May 15.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Inouye-Perez and assistant coach Lisa Fernandez are some of the Bruins’ biggest keys to success as the team prepares for the start of the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City. The Bruins will face Texas Tech at 4 p.m. PDT Sunday in a game airing on ESPN.

UCLA closed its super regional with a single-season home run record (200) and a record for WCWS appearances (34).

Grant is no stranger to the work necessary to see that level of success. But even in her rare bad at-bats and struggles, Inouye-Perez and Fernandez allow her the space to fail. After all, there are nine places in the lineup. One person alone isn’t indicative of UCLA’s wins or losses, Inouye-Perez says.

“We really focus on succeeding and learning how to fail, so they can just get to the next pitch,” Inouye-Perez said. “We talk about the ability to slow the game down, to take deep breaths, to be able to enjoy the moment. It’s not on any one Bruin.”

That mentality doesn’t exist in a void. Inouye-Perez and Fernandez worked in tandem to create the powerhouse team, which is in the midst of one of the best offensive seasons in D1 softball history.

Inouye-Perez is in her 20th year coaching the Bruins and is the only NCAA softball player to win a championship as a player and a coach. She led the 2010 and 2019 teams to those titles. Meanwhile, Fernandez, in her 28th year coaching at UCLA and her fourth as associate coach, has taken primary responsibility for hitting — one of the Bruins’ biggest keys to success. The team leads the nation in batting average (.385), RBIs per game (10.38) and on-base percentage (.496).

“Me and her, we’re workhorses,” Grant said of Fernandez. “We work all day after practice hours together, and it just means the world. You can tell that she loves the game and her little nuggets that she teaches me.”

The Bruins’ success in the batter’s box also has helped raise the tide of a team that could’ve fallen into many pitfalls. The team has only one main pitcher, Taylor Tinsley, who’s spent the most time in the circle in the NCAA tournament with 29-1/3 innings pitched. The Bruins are also young. Of the 21 players on the roster, only eight are seniors, redshirt juniors or juniors.

Seniors Jordan Woolery and Grant are one pace to break NCAA records, but the underclassmen aren’t far behind. Redshirt freshman Aleena Garcia set a single-game RBI record (7) when she hit two three-run homers in UCLA’s 14-4 win over Central Florida in the Super Regional.

Much like Inouye-Perez, Fernandez’s best attribute is her ability to be a sounding board for Grant.

“You get her enthusiasm too,” Grant said. “If you mess up, she’s always there to have your back. She celebrates your wins as well, and she gets very ecstatic about it. It almost makes me laugh, because it makes things so much more fun. She just brings that out of people.”

Even when teams lose to UCLA and Fernandez, it’s still a positive experience for some.

UCLA associate head coach Lisa Fernandez huddles near the mound with starting pitcher Taylor Tinsley (23) during the fifth inning of a comeback win over California Baptist. The Lancers scored 10 runs in the fifth, but Tinsley bounced back from outing.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Central Florida coach Cindy Ball-Malone considered Fernandez one of the best softball players ever, calling her the Michael Jordan of the sport. But what makes her truly impressive, Ball-Malone said, is that Fernandez is an even better coach.

“She’s just a winner,” Ball-Malone said. “I kind of just want to rub up on her or something to get that mojo because she’s got it. Her attention to detail, her belief in the smallest things, that’s why she is so good at what she does.”

It’s no wonder then why so many people, regardless of team affiliation, want to see UCLA’s coaches in person.

If you’re a part of the Bruins, you get to learn from people who have brought the school championships. And, if you’re trying to beat UCLA, there’s no better accomplishment than saying you beat Inouye-Perez and Fernandez’s record-breaking team.

“[Fernandez is] going to push you, and it might be uncomfortable, but dang it, you have no choice but to get better,” Ball-Malone said. “If you can get through her, you can get through anybody, and I’m going to learn from that so I can bring that to this program.”

OKLAHOMA CITY — UCLA, facing elimination in the Women’s College World Series on Friday night, erupted for nine runs in the second inning against Arkansas and rolled to an 11-0 win in five innings that ended the Razorbacks’ first appearance on college softball’s biggest stage.

The Bruins (53-9) got home runs in the inning from Aleena Garcia, Soo-Jin Berry and Megan Grant — her 42nd of the season and the 91st of her career, a program record. Kaniya Bragg homered to right field in the top of the fifth to make it 11-0.

The Razorbacks (47-13) were limited to three hits in five innings by UCLA starter Taylor Tinsley.

UCLA will play another elimination game at 4 p.m. PT Sunday when the Bruins face either Texas Tech, the defending national runner-up, or Tennessee.

Arkansas starter Payton Burnham didn’t last long against UCLA’s powerful lineup.

Garcia homered to lead off the second. Burnham hit Bragg with a pitch, Alexis Ramirez singled, and Berry launched a homer to left field to make it 4-0.

Saylor Timmerman replaced Burnham and walked Jolyna Lamar and Rylee Slimp before Grant crushed a 260-foot no-doubter that hit a metal fence beyond the wall in left-center field.

The power of power, you know?

The power of friendship, the power of persuasion. Power of positive thinking, power at the plate.

Megan Grant’s power.

If there’s one thing in American sports that’s going to get people to sit up, lean forward and engage, it’s the home run. We all dig the long ball.

If anything can get someone to run home and turn on a softball game, it’s a big-time slugger from a big-time school mashing homers like nobody before.

Heard about Grant? She’s the UCLA softball player who’s hit an NCAA-record 40 home runs (so far) this season.

UCLA senior Megan Grant leans over and holds her helmet between pitches during a super regional game against UCF on Friday at Easton Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Forty! In 147 at-bats! That’s a home run every 3.68 at-bats!

If you’re wondering, Mark McGwire hit a home run every 7.3 at-bats in 1998, the year he finished with 70. And Barry Bonds went deep every 6.52 at-bats in 2001, when he hit his MLB-record 73 home runs.

Whenever she gets asked about her historic home runs, the red-hot, red-haired hitter is like, shucks: “I mean, it’s incredible,” she said. “I’m just honestly blessed to be able to say the number 40. But, yeah, that’s all I can say.”

She just wants to be thought of as a hard worker and a good teammate. But what Grant is going to be remembered for most is as the founding member of softball’s 40-home run club.

Her 40th home run came in her 58th game this season and on her seventh career grand slam — Grant Slam? — in the Bruins’ NCAA regional final victory over South Carolina last weekend.

Forty, a round number of round-trippers with a ring to it. And a sweet echo coming so soon after the Bruins women’s basketball team won its first NCAA championship, history to which Grant also contributed as a reserve before softball beckoned.

Side quest completed, the left-handed-hitting senior stepped back into the box to help the Bruins chase a 13th championship on the softball field.

Grant is soaking up the experience, and encouraging her younger teammates to, too: “‘Enjoy this, it’s so rare to be here’ … and, ‘Hey, we can do this, we can do it together.’”

A .469 hitter, she leads the nation in slugging percentage (1.333), on-base percentage (.650) and OPS (1.983). She bats second in UCLA’s NCAA record-breaking lineup that shattered Oklahoma’s 25-year-old previous record of 160 home runs. UCLA hit seven home runs during two super regional wins against Central Florida this weekend to push that record to 200.

With a 9-1 win Friday and a 14-4 victory Saturday, the Bruins advanced to the Women’s College World Series for the 34th time and for the third time in Grant’s astounding tenure.

UCLA senior Megan Grant (43) high-fives teammates during a win over UCF Friday at Easton Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Tip your helmet and toss Grant her bouquets — flower power — because there she is popping up on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and on the MLB Network. One of three finalists for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award, she’s got guys discussing her exploits on a dad pod otherwise dedicated to NBA takes. Fans dressed up as chefs as a tribute to her nickname, “Chef Megan.”

Star power, power broker. Grant is a lift-all-boats attraction for a sport that’s been steadily carving out space in the public consciousness.

All over the country, college softball teams have been breaking attendance records. And ratings are up, up, up; ESPN said this has been its most-watched college softball regular season since 2009, with games averaging 292,000 viewers. The MLB-backed Athletes Unlimited Softball League is entering Season 2; Grant was drafted No. 4 overall by the Portland Cascade.

“People will pay to see her play,” said Lisa Fernandez, UCLA softball legend and associate head coach.

Fernandez also is the general manager of the AUSL’s Utah Talons, for whom UCLA’s other senior slugger Jordan Woolery will play this summer.

The Bruins imported the latest in a lineage of Bay Area dynamic duos. The Oakland Athletics had the Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire; the Golden State Warriors gave us the Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. And now UCLA has Walnut Creek’s Woolery and Grant, of San Bruno — the Bruin Bombers.

They’re the first teammates in NCAA history to each hit 30-plus homers in the same season, with 74 between them.

And, yes, chefs! Like Curry before her, Grant is cookin’ the competition, breaking the 31-year-old NCAA single-season home run record with No. 38 on May 9 against Nebraska.

Included among the record wreckage she’s leaving in her wake: Stacey Nuveman’s UCLA single-season record of 31 homers. For her career, Grant needs only one more to tie Nuveman’s Bruins record of 90.

But Grant’s got to get a pitch to hit first. After UCF walked her six times in two games, she has 74 walks this season and 69 base hits. She also has 13 hit by pitches.

“It’s very similar to Barry Bonds, right?” Fernandez said. “It’s either a walk or a home run. Like, you pick.”

The tale of the tape measure behind Grant’s greatness is the down-to-the inch precision of her preparation. The Mamba-esque magic is in the embracing behind-the-scenes monotony, powering through it.

“She was the hardest worker, always working. Never enough,” said Ray McDonald, Grant’s coach at the San Mateo-based Warrior Softball Academy since she was that kid with an electric, bat-busting swing. “It was eating and sleeping, hitting, and you know, shower. The essentials.”

“When we recruited her, Ray, he was like, ‘Coach, you better be ready to work,’” said Fernandez. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, I know how to work.’ And [then] I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, now I understand how people must have felt when I played.’

“There is an aspect of this game that people don’t realize unless you are in it. To be great, there’s a — for lack of a better word — monotony to the process. Can you master the same move over and over again? And she’s committed to it. To her drills, to the process, to her routine, all of it. There’s a lot of people who are committed to it when they’re not doing well: ‘Oh, got to get back to my drills.’ She has been committed to that process from the day she stepped on campus.”

The process includes working on her mind. That deep, deep breath before every deep, deep home run is a way to stay centered. To stay in the moment — and it is a moment.

For softball. For UCLA. For Grant, who, with all this power and responsibility, is hitting it out of the park.