text: Kylee Perez snatched the piece of candy out of the air as she rounded third base. The sweet treat is third-base coach Kirk Walker’s prize to any UCLA player who hits a home run. But the real reward for the senior who hit the go-ahead three-run homer against No. 6 Florida State in the Women’s College World Series was the celebration waiting at the plate.
  Teammates engulfed the senior as her big hit lifted No. 3 seed UCLA past the sixth-seeded Seminoles on Thursday with the Bruins rallying from a four-run deficit in the sixth inning to win 7-4.
  “Being a senior, I’ve been here for the past three years, I’m not going down looking,” Perez told reporters. “I’m not going down without a bang. So I was doing my best. Honestly, I was going for it.”
  UCLA (57-5) advanced to a winners’ bracket game against No. 2 seed Florida on Friday at 6:30 p.m. PT in Oklahoma City.
  Perez’s homer to right field highlighted a six-run sixth inning for the Bruins, who fell into a hole after giving up four runs in the fifth. It’s UCLA’s 13th come-from-behind win this season, following last week’s rally against Arizona in the Super Regional to clinch a spot in the World Series.
  The second baseman went 3 for 4 with three RBIs against the Seminoles, with her go-ahead homer being her 300th career hit. The team’s emotional leader is just one of three players in UCLA history with 300 career hits, although she has only 19 career home runs.
  “Kylee loves the stage,” head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez told reporters. “It’s awesome to be able to just see her be Kylee Perez. … She’s going to go down as one of those Bruins, it’s not just how she plays, it’s how she impacts others.”
  Pitcher Rachel Garcia, the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year, took a no-hitter into the fifth inning but was undone by walks. She allowed just four hits with a career-high six walks in the complete game. She conceded four earned runs, the second-most she has allowed in a game this year, with 15 strikeouts.
  Three walks came in the top of the fifth, and all resulted in runs for the Seminoles. Dani Morgan broke up the no-hitter with an RBI single that plated Cali Harrod, who drew a walk to lead off the inning. Following two more walks issued by Garcia, Sydney Sherrill hit a three-run double that UCLA left fielder Kinsley Washington couldn’t run down near the left field line. The freshman missed the catch, although it was not ruled an error, watching the ball drop just fair.
  UCLA had just three hits through the first four innings facing Florida State redshirt junior Meghan King. The deficit roused the UCLA bats as the Bruins scratched one unearned run across the plate in the fifth off an RBI single from Briana Perez before completing the rally in the sixth against redshirt senior pitcher Kylee Hanson, who entered in relief.
  The NFCA second-team All-American playing in her first World Series game gave up six runs, five unearned, on five hits in the sixth.
  The successful comeback puts UCLA in a favorable position to chase its first NCAA title since 2010 as only two teams in history have ever recovered from an opening-round loss to win the championship. The 2003 Bruins were one of those teams, but this year’s squad hopes to take a clearer path to the title after Thursday’s win.
  “I wish I could say that every championship I’ve been a part of at UCLA has been perfect and I can tell you straight up it hasn’t,” Inouye-Perez said. “But what makes UCLA so great is our ability to bounce back, to be resilient.”
  All Kylee Perez does is hit clutch three-run homers. pic.twitter.com/2GEj4ZWxzR
  — espnW (@espnW) June 1, 2018
  Not one, not two, not three …
  — espnW (@espnW) June 1, 2018