(Photo via Nicole Mullen/WCSN)
Returning home after a series defeat at No. 22 Utah, ASU Softball looked to bounce back in its three-game set against No. 17 Oregon.
But with a quiet offense and a deteriorating pitching staff, the Sun Devils (21-14, 5-8) were incapable of pulling off the game-one victory over the Ducks (26-11, 6-7) and fell 5-2.
Arizona State started Friday night’s game with junior right-handed pitcher Mac Osborne in the pitching circle. After the Ducks started off with a quiet first inning, graduate outfielder Yannira Acuña put the Sun Devils on top with her ninth home run of the season.
After Acuña’s homer, both teams’ bats stayed silent until the sixth inning. Both Osborne and senior right-handed pitcher Morgan Scott – Oregon’s starter – were shutting down opposing hitters.
Osborne went five innings without allowing any runs. Then in the top of the sixth, she gave up a two-run homer to fifth-year outfielder Allee Bunker, allowing Oregon to plate its first runs of the series and take the lead.
“I thought Mac threw a beautiful game,” head coach Megan Bartlett said. “That’s the 17th-ranked team in the country, and they can bang. The fact that she kept them to two runs through five … I was honestly pleased with her performance, as it was a pretty good matchup.”
Bartlett ultimately ended up pulling Osborne out of the game, switching to sophomore right-handed pitcher Kenzie Brown. As of late, Brown has emerged as ASU’s premier pitcher out of the bullpen. On the season, she had a team-low 2.76 ERA and a team-high 68 strikeouts going into this weekend.
However, she gave up two more home runs – a two-run shot in the sixth to junior infielder Alyssa Daniell and a solo homer in the seventh to sophomore infielder Paige Sinicki – that allowed the Ducks’ run total to reach five.
“Not Kenize’s best night, and that so rarely happens,” Bartlett said. “Lessons learned. She’s pitched a lot of innings at this point, so it will be time for I think the other pitchers to start to step up a little bit. But really, the score looks more lopsided than I think the ball game was. They got a couple of balls through the yard, and we didn’t.”
The Sun Devils managed to add another run in the bottom of the sixth after graduate outfielder Makenna Harper hit a sac-fly to bring in Acuña, but it wasn’t enough of a spark to pull off the comeback.
Arizona State’s offense continued to struggle, only recording four hits against Scott, who pitched a complete game for the Ducks.
“Our bats were strong,” graduate catcher Gianna Boccagno said. “Now that we’ve seen their pitching, we will face them again Saturday and Sunday, and we’ll be able to overcome that and fix that in the next two games. I’m sure of it.”
Although the Sun Devils didn’t come out on top in game one, they were able to find some positives and focus on the little wins from Friday night’s loss. They hope to build on these as the series continues this weekend. One of the optimistic outcomes was the team’s overall growth in energy.
“We’re at our home field, and we love club Farrington,” Bartlett said. “The fans are awesome, so we need to start to find a way to stay locked in, focused and engaged and steal their momentum and energy when we don’t have it, and that’s why we love our home park.”
Boccagno added: “I think our dugout was pretty good. We’re kind of a sing-song dugout. I like that. But we have some people that like to cheer in there and bring the energy up much, so I think if we continue to use our energy, we’ll make a big difference with our bats and defense.”
