(Tucson, AZ) After last night’s rainout, the Cats came out determined to get off on the right foot. After a lead-off ground out to Reyna Carranco, ace pitcher Taylor McQuillin struck out the next batter on an overpowering fastball. Later in the inning there was a ball hit to with an in between hop causing an error on Carranco allowing the USF baserunner to get on base safely. Not phased, McQuillinstruck out her second batter of the inning to retire the side.
Through the first three innings of the game with USF was a pitcher’s duel with McQuillin leading the way for the Wildcats. Both teams only mustered one hit each through three innings and had no scoring opportunities.
Yet in the bottom of the third inning, Arizona shortstop Jesse Harper stepped up to the plate with runners on first and second with two outs Arizona finally found themselves with a rare scoring opportunity, but Harper would fall short at driving a run in. Harper hit a deep ball the left that was caught right at the warning track to end the third inning.
The enormous bright spot for Arizona was McQuillin who racked up 13 strikeouts through five innings of dominating pitching. McQuillin only allowed two hits through those first five innings of play. Yet, McQuillin would find herself in a little trouble in the top of the 6th inning with a lead off error and a walk to give USF runners on base with no outs.
The Bulls would convert the scoring opportunity with another error from the infield allowing the first run of the game to score in the top of the 6th.
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The USF Bulls added on another runn with a sac-fly to center scoring the runner from third. Then, later in the inning USF wasn’t done scoring a run with two outs in the inning. Arizona couldn’t get out of the inning without giving up another run from a double hit in corner leftfield giving USF a commanding 4-0 lead headed into the bottom half of the 6th inning. Time was of the essence of Arizona with the seventh inning approaching.
Arizona would finally get a run on the board from a monster homerun over the centerfield wall putting the Cats on the board for the firs time in the game. Unfortunately, that would be the only run scored in the inning.
Both teams would pitch shutout 7th innings giving the USF Bulls the 4-1 victory over the Arizona Wildcats. McQuillin was on point for most of the game outside of the four run Bulls innings, she would finish the game with 16 strikeouts and two walked batters. Combined with lack of timely hitting the Wildcats really hurt themselves with two crucial errors in the sixth inning where USF scored all four of their runs.
With the lack of timely hitting, the Wildcats would finish the game 0 for 6 with runners in scoring positions. The Cats had their chances to put some runs up early but failed to do so.
Arizona looked past the loss and focused on their second game against University of Illinois-Chicago in the nightcap.
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