(Photo via Marina Williams/WCSN)
TEMPE – It’s normally hard to find a bright spot in a 9-3 loss, but the night that Arizona State’s graduate shortstop Alesia Denby had Friday against Utah can’t be overlooked.
Despite scoring first, Arizona State (18-19, 2-11 Pac-12 Conference) couldn’t match the offensive production of Utah (23-17, 5-11 Pac-12). The Utes ended up scoring nine runs on 11 hits, outperforming the Sun Devils who only managed three runs and seven hits. The offense overall disappointed, but Denby had a personal game to remember as she recaptured some of her early season form against one of the best pitchers in the conference, senior left-hander Mariah Lopez.
“Mariah Lopez is a very good pitcher,” head coach Megan Bartlett said with a laugh. “Plus curve, plus change … She’s also home. All those Arizona kids keep rolling back in here and throwing gems. She’s very good. Utah made that beautiful run last season … she was the biggest piece of that.”
Two of the five hits that the Sun Devils could get off the Peoria native came off the bat of Denby. She led off the bottom half of the third inning with a double, but her biggest hit of the day came in the form of a home run – the only earned run that Lopez gave up – when she led off the bottom half of the fifth inning and smashed one over the wall in right-center field.
Denby came into the Friday night game leading the team in homers with seven, but she hadn’t hit one since March 16 against Oregon State, nearly a month ago. Her solo shot traveled 258 feet and was the first run the Sun Devils scored since the first inning. Her eighth home run was a long time coming, but the game was also her first multi-hit performance since Feb. 25 against New Mexico State.
Denby’s third-inning double rocketed over the right fielder’s head and put her in a prime position to score with no outs and the top of the lineup coming up. Denby even made things easier for herself and her teammates when she advanced to third base on a passed ball. Despite putting herself on third base with no outs, that was as far as Denby would get around the bases that inning, with her teammates unable to come through against the tough arm.
Despite the loss, and even with a seventh-inning groundout, this was Denby’s best game in quite some time, and she looked like the player she was in the early season non-conference games. Arizona State hopes that this performance indicates what’s to come for the graduate shortstop.
“We brought (Denby) here to play an amazing shortstop, which she’s continued to do, but yeah hit out of the middle of the lineup,” Bartlett said. “It’s not just the power numbers, just her presence in the box. She’s got great hand-eye coordination, so, yeah, If we can get (Denby) going that’ll be a game changer.”
