Sun Devils play to 4-4 tie with GCU to open fall scrimmages

(Photo: Addie Russ/WCSN)

PHOENIX – Change has been important for the Arizona State softball team. The team revamped its roster and retained only nine players from the 2026 team that went to the NCAA Austin Super Regionals. The 17 new players have been eager to start the season, with the fall ball season being their first opportunity to prove themselves.

ASU third-year outfielder Ashleigh Mejia had been hoping for a big hit when she stepped up for her third at-bat against Grand Canyon University. Her first two appearances didn’t go as planned. With the game tied 2-2 in the fifth inning, her first base coach walked over to her, telling her to simplify things and that the hit would come.

It did.

Mejia struck a ball past center field that aligned with the golden hunter’s moon in the sky before dropping over the fence to give her team the lead.

The moon continued to rise and change colors as the lead changed three more times, ending in a 4-4 tie after 10 innings between ASU and GCU at GCU Softball Stadium.

“When I just went up there, did my swing, just thought calmly, I feel like that’s when I had success,” Mejia said.

The Antelopes and Sun Devils agreed to a longer game featuring eight pitchers between the teams. Third-year right-handed pitcher Cameryn Harrison allowed two runs in the first inning on a home run by GCU third-year utility Kinley Pappas. The 2026 WAC Player of the Year took a pitch from the Arkansas transfer with a runner on first base deep to right field to even the score.

ASU head coach Megan Bartlett pulled Harrison after the second inning, not disappointed with Harrison’s outing, but to give as many pitchers an opportunity during the fall league season.

“She is tremendously talented, and she’s just settling back into being a mainstay on the staff,” Bartlett said. “ GCU are great hitters, and they were ready for her. They were prepped.”

The Lopes weren’t prepared for the remaining pitchers the Sun Devils featured. Fourth-year pitcher Kylee Magee struck out the first batter she faced in the third inning. Third-year Ava Bradshaw gave up two hits in the third inning, but didn’t allow any runners to reach home plate until the following inning when a throwing error tied the game 3-3.

Fourth-year Anneca Anderson was the toughest in the circle when she came in relief in the seventh inning. The newcomer from North Texas struck out the side in the eighth inning.

“Most of them have plus speed pitches, which is certainly going to help,” Bartlett said. “They’ve got great vertical movement. Any time you can move it off speed as well as they do, that’s just going to be hard to contend with.”

While the Sun Devils’ performance surely showed promise early in the fall, they still ran into two issues that prevented a win: baserunning and defensive errors. Two runners were caught stealing second. A slow jump ended the inning for the Sun Devils, and another runner was thrown out, ending an inning where the Sun Devils were taking advantage of GCU’s first-year pitcher Avery Laird.

Bartlett said that these blunders on the base paths will be viewed as teachable moments that the team will work on in the fall and throughout the regular season in the spring. But despite the game ending in a tie, Bartlett was pleased with her team’s performance.

“I thought that was a pretty high-level ball game,” Bartlett said. “That’s a game you would see in the spring in a top 25 matchup.”

The energy was at its highest point in the game’s last three innings, when Bartlett put in all of her first-year players, which she said was the best part of playing a game three innings longer than a regular-season game.

The Sun Devils will have an intrasquad Maroon and Gold scrimmage at home on Nov. 5 before traveling to California to play UCLA at John C. Funk Stadium on Nov. 7.

“We’re a team that’s based on energy,” Mejia said. “When we’re all engaged, we’re all talking, we’re all cheering, I feel like it makes the game a lot more fun, and it goes by a lot faster.”