Wild Walk-off propels No. 14 ASU past No. 6 Washington in Pac-12 Home Opener

(Photo: Marlee Smith/WCSN)

Who said baserunning wasn’t exciting? A wild ending at Farrington Stadium as No. 14 ASU ended its first home conference game against No. 6 Washington in walk-off fashion. The Sun Devils, down early, battles back to earn a 5-4 victory in one of the wildest endings a softball game can end.

A great place to begin is the ending, so let’s start at the bottom of the 7th inning. The Sun Devils erased a 4-0 deficit earlier in the game to enter the final frame tied 4-4. Fifth-year outfielder Kindra Hackbarth stepped to the plate looking to continue her successful day with two previous singles.

“I was feeling a lot more confident, especially coming off from last weekend, and kind of feeling more into myself,” Hackbarth said. “I was feeling good.”

She was playing well too, as she tripled into the center field gap to put herself on third to get the winning run 90 feet away from the win. Sophomore outfielder Jazmine Hill had a full-count walk that saw her check her swing at the last possible second to get aboard. That check-swing would show to be a critical factor to the events that were about to unfold.

Fifth-year catcher Maddi Hackbarth stepped to the plate and showed bunt, trying to get her sister home for the win. However, M. Hackbarth missed the bunt, which caused K. Hackbarth to prematurely jump as she found herself in the middle of third and home with a chase down about to begin.

The fifth-year player started to go back and forth from third to home as huskies tried to tag her out. From first seeing this, Hill tried to salvage what looked like a broken play by running to third.

“Once I saw Kindra in the rundown, my biggest thing was to make sure I cover her spot and take her place,” Hill said

Hill did take her place; the only problem was Hackbarth made it back to third, leaving Hill with no choice but to run back to second. The Huskies shifted their focus to Hill and chased her all the way to second base. Simultaneously, Hackbarth started dashing towards home plate, and before the Huskies could know what happened, the Sun Devils were all at home plate celebrating a walk-off victory.

“We work on that situation at practice, [baserunning] is kind of what I live for,” Hackbarth said. “It was just a normal play that we always do.”

Normal is not the first word that would come to mind after a play like that. Hackbarth shows off her intelligent baserunning that has garnered her national attention from the past.

“Kindra is a tremendous baserunner; there is no panic in her. I think you guys could see that during the rundown,” head coach Trisha Ford said. “Baserunning will win or lose your ball games, and tonight it won us a ball game.”

The rest of the game was much slower-paced than that high octane 7th. Friday’s game saw ASU use all three of their available pitchers, all offering a different kind of performance.

Fifth-year pitcher Cielo Meza started the game and produced a rather lackluster start for the Sun Devils, allowing four hits and two runs against the seven batters she faced. After one inning of play, Meza was relieved by freshman pitcher Allison Royalty that produced a much more well-rounded performance.

Royalty endured 4.2 innings striking out five with only two hits and two runs against a well-powered Washington offense. While facing some challenging situations like loaded bases in the fourth with no outs, Royalty handled the pressure well to escape the inning with only two runs added.

While pitching struggled early, it was not why the Sun Devils were losing. The offense continued their dry spell that started last week in California as they went scoreless in the first three innings.

Senior Washington pitcher Gabbi Plain locked down any chance of ASU getting into a flow early on. Plain used her 6-foot frame to power and finesse her way out of innings as many at-bats were battles. Even with the Sun Devils’ determination, they only had one hit to show for it through 3 frames of the game.

“Gabbi is a tremendous pitcher, and we know this. She is an olympian,” Ford said. “Tonight we talked, and harped about it all week long, love the fight, love the heart.”

ASU did keep the fight going as they finally broke through in the fourth as strategic baserunning and contact hitting brought in two runs to bring it 4-2. The next inning saw more of ASU’s M.O. as Hill had runners on first and second when she hit a hard double deep into the gap to tie the game 4-4.

“Those two first at-bats were pretty tough on me mentally,” Hill said. “I think my biggest thing for my third at-bat was to breathe and control my at-bat.”

Hill and the Sun Devils did this by staying resilient and forcing long at-bats against the olympian, doing her work for every out before the bats started coming alive for ASU.

It was an ugly game for ASU, but it had a pretty finish that ended a four-game losing streak for the Sun Devils against the 6th ranked club in the nation. They look to keep this momentum against the Huskies on Saturday as they play a doubleheader at Farrington Stadium.

“Really, at the end of the day, what matters is we get a W,” Ford said. “It doesn’t matter how it looks.”