(Photo: Travis David V Whittaker/WCSN)
No. 21 Arizona State (25-12, 5-5 Pac-12) dropped their first matchup of the weekend series against No. 1 UCLA (33-1, 7-0), in their fourth straight conference loss by a score of 10-0 at Farrington Stadium in Tempe on Friday night.
Following a sweep by rival Arizona in the Territorial Cup series last weekend in which the Sun Devils gave up 18 runs to the Wildcats while scoring none of their own, the mighty ASU offense was again held scoreless.
“It’s a choice on whether you’re picking a good pitch to hit or not,” senior centerfielder and vocal leader Morgan Howe said. “A lot of (the mistakes) we are making right now are mental. Physically we are capable (of playing well), but mentally, we’re just a little bit checked out.”
ASU head coach Trisha Ford preached the same story, saying that the team was not playing like themselves.
“That was my message to them,” she said. “Come out and play softball. As crazy as that sounds, we’re not playing softball right now. In the batter’s box especially, we’re getting good pitches to hit, we’re just not pulling the trigger.”
UCLA freshman righty Megan Faraimo proved to be practically untouchable against ASU’s bats, striking out nine Sun Devils in the five-inning run-rule affair. She manufactured a perfect game until a two-out fourth-inning single from Howe darted through the right infield gap and thwarted Faraimo’s case for perfection.
The Sun Devils haven’t scored a run since March 24 during their magical nine-run comeback in the bottom of the seventh in the final game of the Utah series.
With the 10-0 shutout, Arizona State’s pitching and defense have now conceded 28 unanswered runs over the past four games. Junior righty Samantha Mejia yielded two runs in the first after an RBI single from UCLA junior outfielder Bubba Nickles. A wild pitch from Mejia scored another run for the Bruins.
In the third, Nickles racked up another RBI, this one a two-bagger that was roped off the left field wall. Mejia gave up her fourth run of the day after another RBI double from sophomore designated hitter Aaliyah Jordan scored Nickles. Mejia was then pulled for redshirt junior righty Cielo Meza.
“I was disappointed with Sam,” Ford said. “She didn’t come out ready to go. Pressure is on them, and today I felt like we played with the pressure on us. That’s not who we are, we should be loose, we should be playing hard and fast. We have nothing to lose.”
When asked about her opinion regarding the mental state of her team and facing the adversity of a losing streak, Ford gave a passionate response, offering almost philosophical-level life messages during the postgame press conference.
“We are not embracing the hard, (playing UCLA and other Pac-12 competition) is only going to help us get better if we do this the right way,” she said. “This is about softball, but it’s not. It’s about what you’re going to do when you’re done with softball. If you’re going to be successful in life, you’re going to have to go through (adversity and challenges) and you’re going to have to push through it and we have to push a little more.”
Ford and her Sun Devils look to respond to the adversity and get the offense going Saturday afternoon in their second game against the Bruins.
