The Bruins’ last home stand of the regular season has a little extra significance this year.

Not only do this weekend’s games against California and Stanford have important postseason and Pac-10 implications, but with eight graduating seniors on the team, senior day on Sunday will be especially meaningful.

“When we come down to our last home game, it will be an emotional one because so many of the seniors have impacted us so much in the past four years,” coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “We’ll celebrate the fact that we’ve had quality years from talented ballplayers that have left their names in the record books here at UCLA.”

Seven of the eight graduating seniors in this year’s class were part of the last national title that Bruin softball earned back in 2004.

The seniors have played in the Women’s College World Series every season that they’ve been in the program and have created strong friendships and lasting memories along the way.

“(Senior day’s) going to be fun because our families are going to be here,” senior outfielder Tara Henry said. “Hopefully we can go out with a win.”

“I can’t believe it’s here already,” senior shortstop Jodie Legaspi said. “I’m going to have a lot of family there.

“It will definitely be a day that I’m going to always remember.”

Five seniors – Legaspi, Henry, catcher Jaisa Creps, 1B/2B/P Lisa Dodd and outfielder Whitney Holum – are regular starters on a team that also starts three freshmen.

The current team, like the national champion Bruins of 2004, struggled at the start of the Pac-10 season, but have now won five of their last six games, and they seem to have turned a corner after sweeping the Oregon schools at home this past weekend. Only time will tell if the 2007 team can achieve what the 2004 team did.

“We’ve had such a long season,” Inouye-Perez said. “We had a rocky start. This season kind of taught us a lot of lessons sooner than we wanted to learn them, but I think now the team has really pulled together and is now able to be led by the seniors. The seniors got us back on track.”

LEGASPI HONORED: As good as Legaspi’s career has been, it is almost hard to believe that she hadn’t earned a Pac-10 Player of the Week award before this week. But the work that Legaspi did last weekend was simply too good to ignore. Legaspi earned her first Pac-10 Player of the Week award for her offensive performance in last week’s games.

In the Bruins’ four games last week, Legaspi hit .417 with three home runs and nine RBIs. All three of her home runs came on Saturday and Sunday against No. 15 Oregon State and were difference-makers in the two victories. On the defensive side of the ball, Legaspi was error-free in the four games last week.

TIGHT PAC-10: Things didn’t look good for the Bruins early in Pac-10 play, but after sweeping the Oregon schools and getting a little bit of help from Cal and Stanford, UCLA finds itself right back in the thick of the race. The Bruins’ 9-6 record ties them with Arizona State and Washington for second place, while first-place Arizona is holding steady at 11-3-1.