(Photo: Nicholas Badders/WCSN)
Following a four-game sweep of North Dakota State and BYU behind a no-hitter from southpaw and a three-home run game from Marisa Stankiewicz, the No. 7 Arizona State Softball team will head to Corvallis to take on the Oregon State Beavers this weekend.
ASU currently sits atop the Pac-12 standings with a 31-4 record on the season with a 5-1 conference record. OSU enters the game in the middle of the Pac-12 with a 20-15 record and a 3-6 conference record.
Despite being in the middle of the pack in the Pac-12 standings, Oregon State has weathered what has been a difficult schedule.
The Beavers faced six ranked teams in non-conference including No. 6 Georgia, No. 8 Tennessee, No. 11 Auburn, No. 14 LSU, No. 18 Long Beach State and No. 19 Louisiana.
OSU then won their opening conference series against No. 24 California before dropping the next two series against top-ranked opponents in No. 3 UCLA and No. 5 Oregon.
The Beavers will be looking to knock off the Sun Devils behind a duo of pitchers in freshman Mariah Mazon (8-0, 2.61 ER) and junior Meehra Nelson (11-6, 2.10 ERA). The two have combined to throw the majority of innings for OSU as they have combined for over 200 innings this season.
On the offensive side, the Beavers will look to the long ball to provide the majority of their runs as they enter the series with 22 including seven coming from freshman Hope Brander.
After taking two of the three games last season, ASU will look to do the same after outscoring OSU 23-5 in last season’s series.
Reigning Pac-12 player of the week Marisa Stankiewicz will look to build off her recent power surge of hitting three home runs in one game to lead the Sun Devils. Stankiewicz also dominated the Beavers last season with two home runs and four RBIs in the series.
ASU will also look to G Juarez to continue her dominant streak as she picked up four Pac-12 Pitcher of the week awards during the month of March while having an ERA of 0.10 during that time.
Freshman slugger Danielle Gibson will join Stankiewicz as an X-factor on the offensive side as she enters the series four in batting average and sixth in slugging percentage in the Pac-12.
The Sun Devils will take on the Beavers in Corvallis at 12:05 p.m. on Friday, with a 3 p.m. game Saturday, and end the series at noon for the Sunday game.
