Jennie Finch's 60 consecutive pitching victories might be the most impressive individual streak in Arizona history.

The Arizona Wildcats have the now dearly departed Streak in basketball — 25 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament. Thanks, Lute.

Arizona has The Streak in football — the upset-filled nine-season unbeaten run against Arizona State, from 1982 to 1990. Thanks, Larry Smith and Dick Tomey.

Arizona has so much more.

With a big boost from coach Mike Candrea‘s eight-time national championship softball program, the Wildcats have plenty of other (lower-case) streaks to celebrate.

Here are 12 of the best team streaks, in no particular order:

1. Softball’s 16 consecutive appearances in the College World Series, from 1988 to 2003. If not for a shocking upset in the regionals when the Wildcats were ranked No. 1 under interim head coach Larry Ray, the streak would be up to 22.

2. Softball’s 17 consecutive seasons with an All-American pitcher, from 1991 (Debby Day) to 2007 (Taryne Mowatt). This helps explain that College World Series streak.

3. Men’s basketball 71-game winning streak in McKale Center (1987-1992). It included a double-overtime win against eventual national champion Duke in 1991 and ended with an 89-87 loss to UCLA on Jan. 11, 1992.

4. Softball’s 18 consecutive years of being ranked No. 1 at some point of the season. That streak ended in 2009.

5. Women’s swimming current streak of 19 consecutive top 10 finishes in the NCAA meet. Thanks, Frank Busch. (The women also have a streak of six top three finishes in a row.)

6. Men’s swimming current streak of 12 consecutive top 8 national finishes in the NCAAs. Thanks again, Frank Busch. (Men’s and women’s swimming each won a national title in 2008.)

7. Men’s basketball 312 consecutive appearances in the AP regular-season poll. But not one week in 2009-10.

Not only was Lute Olson the author of the The Streak, he had significant runs at McKale Center and in the AP poll/Tucson Citizen photo

8. Softball’s 38-game winning streak over Arizona State (1991-2000). All the more amazing because the Sun Devils had a decent program, but Candrea owned his alma mater.

9. Men’s basketball’s 81-game winning streak in Bear Down Gym (1945-51). All that in the watch of coach Fred Enke.

10. Football’s 214-game scoring streak. It started with the 1972 season and ended with a 28-0 loss to Syracuse in the 1990 Aloha Bowl. It was the second-longest streak in the nation at the time.

11. Softball’s 47-game winning streak from April 1996 to March 1997. That’s an NCAA record.

12. And here’s one more from softball: The Wildcats had a 70-game winning streak at Hillenbrand Stadium from 2000 to 2002).

Individually, it’s hard to believe anything tops Jennie Finch‘s 60 consecutive pitching victories from 2000 to 2002. Another super softball streak: Caitlin Lowe stole 56 bases without being caught.

In softball, Amy Chellevold has the school’s longest hitting streak at 30 games. The baseball hitting streak belongs to Brian Anderson (2003) and Jason Donald (2006) at 26 games.

More impressive might be what Jake Thrower did in 1997. He had hits in 11 consecutive at-bats.

Have a favorite streak we missed? Let us know in the comments section or at anthonygimino (at) gmail.com.

This is it. The biggest home football game Arizona has ever played. Or at least the most important. Or the most anticipated. Or all of that.

It is Arizona vs. Oregon. ESPN’s College Football GameDay is here. Fans are encouraged to turn Arizona Stadium into a “Red Out” on Saturday night. Control of the Pac-10 race on the line.

Chuck Cecil is mobbed by fans after the 1986 victory over Arizona State/Tucson Citizen photo

Arizona isn’t a spoiler, its usual role at this time of the year. With a one-two-three punch, the Wildcats can knock down the Ducks, defeat the Devils, conquer the Trojans and grab a few hundred bouquet of roses.

Do we expect that to happen? No. But everyone can still dream. That’s the point.

That’s what makes this the biggest, most important, most anticipated home game Arizona has ever played.

For now, we see the five other biggest home games like this:

1. Washington, Nov. 7, 1992
No. 1 Washington had won 22 games in a row, including a 54-0 whitewash of the Wildcats a year earlier, and had been co-national champs in 1991. Arizona, out of the blue, had won four in a row behind the early stirrings of the Desert Swarm defense. The nickname was so new that ABC sideline reporter Jack Arute mistakenly called it “Desert Storm” that day.

Everyone knew what it was by the end of the game. A sun-drenched crowd of 58,510 watched Arizona upset the Huskies 16-3 to improve to 4-1-1 in the Pac-10.

Although Washington would eventually make it to the Rose Bowl, this marked the beginning of the end for the Huskies, who learned that week of an investigation into quarterback Billy Joe Hobert.

Arizona lost its final two games of the regular season in painful fashion — 14-7 at USC on a fourth-quarter halfback touchdown pass from Deon Strother, and 7-6 to Arizona State on a 51-yard tackle-breaking run from Kevin Galbreath … the only time the Sun Devils crossed midfield all game.

If Arizona had won its last two games, it would have finished 6-1-1 in the conference, a half-game ahead of Washington and Stanford at 6-2.

2. UCLA, Oct. 10, 1998
Ortege Jenkins’ Leap by the Lake happened a week earlier, so Tucson was as amped as possible as the No. 10 Wildcats took on No. 3 UCLA, the first Pac-10 meeting of top-10 teams in seven years. ABC yawned, opting to televise No. 21 Notre Dame at 2-2 Arizona State instead.

It was still early in the season, so the game didn’t take on a winner-take-all quality, even though that is how it turned out to be. Arizona was 5-0 overall, 2-0 in the league. UCLA, with Heisman candidate quarterback Cade McNown, was 3-0 and 1-0.

A crowd of 58,738 turned out to see two dynamic offenses, and it was quite a show through three quarters, with the Bruins holding a 31-28 lead. But one play early in the fourth quarter broke Arizona … and its best player was the one responsible.

McNown, as he had earlier in the game, ran down the line to his left, showing option. This time, however, he stopped, dropped back and hit a wide-open Danny Farmer for a 64-yard touchdown. All-American cornerback Chris McAlister had fallen for the fake.

”We ran a couple of options on them a few times and the corners blew off the wide receivers,” McNown said after the game. ”We had a feeling that it was going to work.”

UCLA scored 21 fourth-quarter points and won 52-28. The Bruins wouldn’t lose until a hurricane-delayed game at Miami on Dec. 5, knocking UCLA out of the first BCS national title game. If the Bruins had been able to tackle Edgerrin James that day, Arizona, at 11-1 in the regular season, would have gone to the Rose Bowl as the Pac-10 representative while UCLA played for the national championship.

3. Arizona State, Nov. 27, 1982
ASU fans brought roses to Arizona Stadium as the Sun Devils, coming in ranked sixth in the nation with a 5-1 league mark, needed just to beat a 5-4-1 Arizona team to get to its first Rose Bowl.

Arizona State, thanks mostly to coach Frank Kush, had a headlock on the rivalry at that time, winning 15 of the previous 17 games. But with 58,515 on hand, the Wildcats turned those red roses black.

The signature play was Brian Holland taking a short pass from Tom Tunicliffe and racing 92 yards for a touchdown. UA held on to win 28-18, sending UCLA to the Rose Bowl instead of ASU.

For Arizona, it was the glorious start of a nine-year unbeaten streak against ASU.

4. UCLA, Nov. 9, 1985
The Wildcats came into the game at 3-1 in the conference, and they played only seven conference games that season in what was an unbalanced league schedule in those days. The Wildcats, if they could win their final three games, starting with 14th-ranked UCLA (6-1-1, 4-1), would be the Pac-10 champs.

Arizona trailed 17-0 at halftime, but began to rally when Chuck Cecil — who else? — blocked a punt that went out of bounds at the UCLA 7. James DeBow scored two plays later to cut the lead to 10. The Bruins regained a 17-point lead with the help of a long pass from (future Pac-10 TV analyst) David Norrie to (future UCLA head coach) Karl Dorrell.

The Wildcats weren’t done, scoring on another short DeBow run and getting a 61-yard interception return for a touchdown from lineman Dana Wells. Arizona missed the two-point conversion, however, to keep the score at 24-19. That was important because Arizona had the ball at the UCLA 32 as time ran out.

Think Max Zendejas could have kicked the tying field goal?

Arizona would win those final two games to finish 5-2 in the league. UCLA won at 6-2.

5. Arizona State, Nov. 22, 1986
The Sun Devils had already clinched the Pac-10 title and their first Rose Bowl appearance, but the Wildcats still found a way to be spoilers.

Playing in front of 58,267 — the second-largest crowd in Arizona Stadium at the time — Arizona shocked fourth-ranked ASU 34-17 with the most memorable play in school history. If you’ve seen it once, you’ve probably seen it hundreds of times, and it never gets old. Chuck Cecil’s 106-yard interception return for a touchdown.

“I just ran,” Cecil told the Citizen years later. “I still, to this day, don’t know why I ran it out.”

UPDATE: ValleyCat on UAsports.net points out that I missed one — the 1968 “ultimatum game” when Arizona beat 20th-ranked Wyoming 14-7 and then strong-armed the Sun Bowl to take the Wildcats over Arizona State, which then turned around and smacked UA 30-7. Too late, UA was headed to El Paso, and Phoenix officials were steamed enough to eventually create a local bowl — the Fiesta.

But, when I sat down to write this, my intent was to look at only the Pac-10 years. I forgot to include that caveat in the original version, which is one of the hazards of posting at 3:30 in the morning. Anyway, consider my top 5 list an examination of the Pac-10 years only.