ASU Softball: Sun Devils come up lame in series finale against Washington

Maddi Hackbarth vacated her perch behind home plate, making the slow trek towards the mound to pick up freshman pitcher Allison Royalty. As the duo chatted, the Washington dugout sang and danced, celebrating its fourth home run of the day in what was a dominant 11-1 Husky win in the series finale Sunday at Farrington. UW’s 11 runs came on 12 hits, surrendered by Royalty and the starter Lindsay Lopez.

“I think today there wasn’t one part of our game I thought we did well,” Ford said. “When you play like that against a top 10 team, it’s going to get ugly fast, and it definitely got ugly.

The Huskies broke the game open in the top of the second, with some help from the usually solid ASU defense. With one out and a runner on first, back to back throwing errors from Denae Chatman and Bella Loomis allowed Washington to score an unearned run. Following a Sis Bates flyout, UW home run leader Baylee Klingler smacked a line shot deep down the left field line. The ball rattled off the foul pole for a three run homer, pushing the Husky advantage to 5-0 early. Not yet satisfied, Sami Reynolds laced a solo shot to dead center on the very next pitch.

“I always say physical errors come from mental errors,” Ford said. “We’ve got to improve our focus on defense.

ASU used all of its offensive fireworks during the series first three games, as Washington hurler Gabbie Plain made sure to bounce back from a rough outing Friday night. She was magnificent, throwing all five innings and allowing just three hits while striking out six . Singles from Maddi Hackbarth and Halle Harger accounted for the only two Sun Devil baserunners of the afternoon, until Yannira Acuna belted a solo homer to deep center in the ASU last-gasp fifth inning. It was Acuna’s second of the season, and second in as many days. The effort to extend the game fell short, as Plain retired the next two batters in short order.

The Sun Devils hit the road this week, as they will play at BYU on Tuesday night before heading to Salt Lake City for a four game set with Utah.

“We have to reset fast and get our heads right, that’s all you can do at this point,” Ford said. “As bad as it was today, we still got a series win against a really good team. We learned a lot, we had a lot of good stuff and obviously some bad. We’ll need to clean up our miscues to get us ready for Utah.”