Party hats, piñatas, disco balls: Inside UCLA’s ‘completely feral’ dugout celebration

OKLAHOMA CITY — Party hats. Streamers. Star shades. A bubble gadget, a disco ball and a unicorn piñata. The most up to date membership on the Women’s College World Series? It’s UCLA’s dugout.

“It is absolutely feral in there,” Bruins senior Taylor Stephens advised ESPN this week. “This program has been partying ever since my freshman year and long before that, too. It’s tradition. Our team, our dugout, it’s a vibe — it’s an undeniable vibe. We just like to have fun.”

UCLA loves to have amusing. And apparently no program is having extra of it throughout the outlet weekend of the 2025 WCWS than the No. 9-seeded Bruins, who go back Sunday for an removal recreation in opposition to No. 7-seeded Tennessee (3 p.m. ET, ABC) following a 3-1 loss to No. 12 Texas Tech on Saturday.

Ranked 1/3 nationally in runs scored (481), 8th in house runs (98) and anchored via a pitching triumvirate of Taylor Tinsley, Kaitlyn Terry and Addisen Fisher, UCLA made a number of noise en path to its 34th WCWS look — a Division I file. But it wasn’t till the Bruins arrived in Oklahoma City this week that their raucous and rowdy celebration formally spilled again onto the nationwide level.

Perennially a few of the loudest dugouts in school softball, the Bruins introduced themselves with tinted glasses and disco lighting in Thursday’s opener in opposition to Oregon. After Jessica Clements introduced her two-run, walk-off house run, they celebrated at house plate with blue and gold celebration hats on their heads. On Saturday, UCLA took issues up every other notch, flooding Devon Park’s third-base dugout with bubbles and adorning its partitions with paper streamers and balloons. A poster taped onto the dugout wall carried a easy message: “It’s party time.”

“The party has always been a part of the culture here,” mentioned junior infielder Jordan Woolery, part of the Bruins’ historical power-hitting duo with Megan Grant this spring. “When we’re kind of tense, that’s not really the best version of ourselves. Having fun in the dugout, having fun on the field, all that chatter makes it easier just to play for each other with a sense of freedom.”

Props, such because the pinata the Bruins hung from the dugout ceiling Saturday night time, have lengthy been fixtures of UCLA’s dugout celebration. Woolery, a first-team All-American, has witnessed many evolutions of them. In the wake of earlier Bruins standard-bearers Megan Fariamo and Anna Vines, she remembers pickle jars, containers of Reese’s Puffs cereal and a parade of crammed animals a few of the maximum loved props that experience popped up within the UCLA dugout lately.

When the likes of Woolery and Stephens encountered packets of celebration hats or goofy shades prior to Game 1 on Thursday, there used to be no hesitation.

“We jumped right on them,” Stephens mentioned. “The party hats are new. But the party is not.”

Indeed, UCLA carries a wealthy historical past of dugout antics, relationship so far as the college’s dynastic softball upward push within the 1980s. While the 2025 Bruins battled Texas Tech ace NiJaree Canady on Saturday, generations of former avid gamers exchanged tales and footage of WCWS dugout events and props of the previous thru a WhatsApp workforce chat of UCLA softball alumni.

In some circumstances, the partying started even prior to the avid gamers left the crew lodge.

“Every year in Oklahoma City, we would stay at the Embassy Suites and there were these two glass elevators that took you to your rooms,” 2004 nationwide champion Tara Henry mentioned. “On our way to the stadium, we would pile into them and have a team dance party, literally shaking the elevators an hour before a WCWS game.”

Even with a decades-long historical past, the scenes throughout the Bruins’ dugout this week apparently mark a stark departure from previous eras of this system and the game.

First below trainer Sharon Backus after which Sue Enquist, UCLA constructed itself into school softball’s first superpower thru no-nonsense depth and stringent program requirements. But whilst the ongoings of Bruins’ dugout celebrations and the technology of avid gamers within them have advanced, former UCLA avid gamers like Henry see the similar core pillars nonetheless propping up this system below 19th-year trainer Kelly Inouye-Perez, who performed for Enquist from 1989 to 1993 and spent 13 seasons as an assistant prior to taking up this system in 2007.

“It’s always been about how do we manage to stay together as a team and have fun, but ultimately be held accountable,” Henry mentioned. “We’re seeing a more free, lighter type of team and a different expression of it. I think Kelly has been a big part of that. But believe me, they still have standards and still understand what it means to play for UCLA softball.”

The Bruins had been fast to throw on their celebration hats in Thursday’s opener. However, how UCLA’s latest props discovered their means into the dugout remained a thriller to its avid gamers into the weekend prior to a bunch of former Bruins led via Taylor Sullivan, Alaiyah Jordan and Malia Quarles confirmed up with extra Saturday, softball alums proceeding the celebration tradition.

“Shoutout to Party City in Moore, Oklahoma,” mentioned Sullivan, who reached the WCWS thrice with UCLA. “The Bruin party is just the epitome of UCLA softball. Playing together, playing for each other, trying to make the Bruin bubble proud.”

Inouye-Perez introduced a transparent message after a couple of past due Texas Tech house runs sank the Bruins on Saturday, sending UCLA into an removal recreation with Tennessee on Sunday. Less than 24 hours after dealing with one fireballer in Canady, the Bruins will probably be examined once more Sunday via Lady Vols ace Karlyn Pickens, proprietor of the quickest recorded pitch in softball historical past.

“The bottom line is we’re not done yet,” Inouye-Perez mentioned. “Now we just have more time to be able to play more games and get really hot. I’m excited. We can’t wait to get back out there.”

The Bruins, who scratched 3 runs off Pickens after they confronted the hard-throwing junior in February, intend to increase their keep in Oklahoma City on Sunday. As lengthy as UCLA stays within the WCWS box, the dugout celebration will move on.

“You’ll see more props tomorrow and the next day and the next day,” Stephens mentioned. “The props are everlasting. They’re overflowing. The party doesn’t stop.”