(Photo: Liesl Babicka/WCSN)
Continuously falling victim to the long ball, the Arizona State Sun Devils fell behind early to the Oregon Ducks in Game 2 of their series, eventually losing 9-1.
ASU pitcher Breanna Macha gave up a solo home run to Gwen Svekis in the bottom of the second inning to begin the scoring for the Ducks. After a Mia Kamuso single up the middle, Macha let a ball get away from her, allowing Lauren Lindvall to smack a two-run home run into right-center field, increasing the Ducks’ lead to 3-0 in the second inning.
Svekis homered for her second time of the night to deep centerfield in the top of the fifth inning. Iakopo answered Svekis with a home run for herself, back to back extending the Ducks lead to 6-0. Macha was chased from the game finishing with 4.1 innings pitched with six earned runs and four home runs allowed.
“They are a top three team for a reason,” Macha said. “They hit balls, they hit strikes, they hit balls in the other batter’s box. They are a good hitting team and sometimes you have to tip your hat off to them.”
The game represented the first time ASU has given up five or more home runs in a game since May 2015. Despite the roughbstat line, coach Trisha Ford stuck by the senior righty after the game
“It wasn’t bad,” Ford said. “I think she made some really good pitches, and she didn’t make some great pitches.”
The bright spot for the ASU was DeNae Chatman who started in the designated player spot. Chatman, making only her sixth start of the season, homered to deep centerfield in the fifth inning to give ASU a heartbeat.
“I was really excited,” Chatman said. “We have been working really hard this week on having a plan for our at-bats and sticking to it. It was nice to see it pay off.”
Dale Ryndak entered the game for ASU to stop the bleeding however, it was not to be as Oregon continued their dominant performance. Sanders and April Utecht both homered in the final two innings, scoring three more total runs for the Ducks.
Oregon had limited their opponents to five runs in the first three innings of all their games this season. This statistic continued as the Sun Devils fell victim and struggled to mustard a hit off of Oregon’s Miranda Elish. Elish limited the Sun Devils hitless until the third inning. Elish finished the game with seven complete innings, allowing just four hits and one earned run with 11 strikeouts.
Even though the Sun Devils have lost the series to the Ducks, Ford saw signs of life from the team and is looking to see even more next time.
“I think we fought a little bit better today, and just didn’t fight hard enough,” Ford said.
The Sun Devils now fall to 33-7 and 7-4 in Pac 12 play. The Devils will look to rebound in the third game on Sunday at 12 p.m.
