It took 41 games, but the ASU softball team's real season is about to start.
Pac-10 conference play gets underway Friday, when the No. 7 Sun Devils travel to Westwood, Calif. to take on the No. 11 UCLA Bruins.
The "Conference of Champions" has lived up to its billing thus far this season.
Seven of the Pac-10's eight softball programs hold positions in the USA Today top-25 poll.
The only program left out is California, which just recently dropped out of the polls after losing three of its four games last week.
UA leads the conference with its No. 5 ranking, while the Pac-10 has a stranglehold on the 11 to 14 spots. UCLA, Washington, Oregon and Stanford occupy those spots, respectively.
Rounding out the conference's ranked is No. 17 Oregon State.
The Sun Devils are wading in the calm before the storm.
ASU heads to Southern California on the heels of an impressive five-win sweep of last weekend's Diamond Devil Invitational.
Leading the way for ASU has been sophomore Kaitlin Cochran, who was named the Pac-10 Softball Player of the Week Tuesday.
Cochran's week was among the strongest in school history.
She hit for a .750 average (15-for-20) with three home runs, 10 RBIs and eight runs scored.
Cochran hit safely in all seven of the Sun Devils games over the week and is riding a nine-game hitting streak.
With her efforts, Cochran has cemented herself at the top of the conference in several individual offensive categories.
She currently leads the Pac-10 with a .530 batting average, a .923 slugging percentage, a .620 on-base percentage and 62 hits.
Cochran is also tied for the conference lead with 45 runs.
Her 10 home runs are good for second in the conference.
Cochran is the second Sun Devil to be named for weekly conference honors.
The first came on March 13, when junior pitcher Katie Burkhart received her fifth such distinction.
While the Sun Devils are yet to play the consistent quality competition that the Pac-10 has to offer, their statistics are impressive across the board.
ASU goes in to conference play with a .318 team batting average, which dwarves the .189 average of its opponents to date.
The Sun Devils have allowed a meager 2.4 runs per contest, which pales in comparison to the 6.5 runs it's averaged per game.
Reach the reporter at: alex.espinoza@asu.edu.
