(Photo: Alex Roddier/WCSN)
No. 14 Arizona State (5-2) dropped their second game of the Littlewood Classic to the No. 4 ranked Florida Gators (8-0) by a score of 7-2 on Friday night in Tempe.
The first four innings of the contest were full of back-and-forth action from both teams, including leadoff home runs by Florida’s Amanda Lorenz and ASU’s Kindra Hackbarth in the first inning. However, the Gators broke away in the top of the fifth.
Sophomore second baseman Hannah Adams launched a solo home run to deep center field to start the Gators’ runaway frame. After a throwing error on ASU pitcher Mikayla Santa-Cruz, the freshman right-hander proceeded to walk the next batter and allowed a single to load the bases with no outs.
Santa-Cruz then walked in a run and hit the next batter to score another, before she was relieved by redshirt junior Cielo Meza. Meza struck out the first batter she faced, then hit another batter, making the score 7-2 before wrapping up the inning.
Out of the four runs scored in the big inning for the Gators, three of them were off walks or hit-by-pitches from Meza and Santa-Cruz.
“We walked too many batters and we hit a couple batters, I think that kind of stung us,” ASU head coach Trisha Ford said.
Ford put freshman Abby Andersen in the circle for her first collegiate start in the big non-conference matchup against the Gators. The young right-hander got off to a rocky start, giving up Lorenz’s leadoff home run as well as hitting the next batter. Andersen then responded with a decent outing, allowing four more hits and two additional runs through three innings of work.
“We had a couple bumps, but (Andersen) responded nicely,” Ford said. “She had good fight, poise and composure. A lot of good stuff from her.”
“She’s gritty, she wants the ball, she wants to be in there, and she’s going at each batter,”senior outfielder Morgan Howe added. “It was just really nice to see her out there and it was really nice to play behind her.”
Before ASU’s collapse in the fifth, the Sun Devils backed their freshman pitcher’s miscues with offense of their own. Hackbarth’s leadoff home run equalized the game at one run apiece in the first. An RBI double from Howe did the same in the second, scoring Hackbarth who got on base with a bunt just before.
“(ASU’s pitching) is coming together, we’ve had some little rough patches, but we have their backs as hitters and as a team,” Hackbarth said. “We just have to be ready to make plays.”
Despite Hackbarth’s 2-for-3 night at the plate, the standout performer of the top-15 matchup was Florida’s senior right-hander Kelly Barnhill. The 2017 USA Softball Collegiate National Player of the Year was lights-out for the entire duration of the game, with her only blunders being Hackbarth’s bunt and homer, along with Howe’s double and a bunt of her own. Barnhill struck out 14 of the 27 batters she faced, sitting down four different ASU batters at least twice.
“(Barnhill) loves to compete, she loves to be out on the field,” Ford said. She just wants to go out there and win games for the team. She doesn’t really care how she does it.” The ASU head coach is no stranger to Barnhill after coaching her in 2018 with Team USA.
Following the loss to the Gators, the Sun Devils embark on day three of the Littlewood Classic on Saturday against Central Michigan at 2:00 p.m.
