(Tucson, AZ) The Arizona Wildcats looked to close out the Wildcat Invitational on a positive note against #18 James Madison.
Arizona has won every game they’ve played in the invitational but gave a less than impressive performance against Kent State Saturday night.
James Madison came into the game ranked #19 in the country with a record of (7-2). However, the Dukes would drop a game earlier in the day against Minnesota.
There seemed to be more of a sense of urgency in Arizona in comparison to Saturday nights game against Kent State. Arizona pitcher Taylor McQuillin would start off the game like she usually does and that’s pounding the strike-zone keeping the batters off balance a guessing that the plate.
With McQuillin pitching a scoreless game early on the Arizona offense would give her some breathing room early on. The Cats scored two runs in the first inning by playing some small ball. Alyssa Palomino-Cardoza lead-off the inning with a single to get things started for Arizona. The Wildcats would score Palomino-Cardoza from a groundout from Jesse harper allowing the baserunner to score from third. Later in the inning Arizona would add on another run scoring Dejah Mulipola from an RBI single by Malia Martinez giving the Cats a 2-0 lead.
The Wildcats offense would stay steady adding on runs in the second, and the third inning extending Arizona’s lead 4-0. Although, they did have some missed opportunities along the way with bases loaded, the Cats still managed to put runs on the board. McQuillin stay consistent through four innings of work keeping the James Madison Dukes scoreless and searching for answers.
As the old saying goes “you never want to let a team hang around”, and that’s exactly what the Wildcats did. It would comeback to haunt them in the fifth inning as the Dukes put up a crooked number in four runs evaporating Arizona’s four run lead. Major errors in the infield lead to the Cats collapse in the inning.
James Madison wasn’t done striking fear into the Cats as the Dukes in the seventh inning were able to put a run on the board to take the lead 5-4 going into the bottom of the seventh. With the Wildcats down to their final half inning this looked bleak for the Cats.
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Somehow, someway things seem to always even out in the game of softball. Arizona would learn this as Riley Pierce came up to the plate with two outs and a runner on third. Pierce battled in the at-bat after digging herself into a 0-2 hole. Pierce hit a hard ground ball right to the Dukes second baseman and the ball went under her glove for an error allowing the Cats to tie the game at five.
The Dukes were unphased from Arizona tying the game up and would come right back out to take the lead in the top of the eighth. The James Madison crowd grow louder and louder as the eighth inning went on putting even more pressure on Arizona.
Once again Arizona would see the new invitational rules putting a baserunner at second to start extra innings. But the Cats first two batters couldn’t cash in with a pop-up and a strikeout from Palomino-Cardoza. Again, it came down to the final out, this time it was up to Reyna Carrancoto save the day for the Wildcats. Carranco would do just that lining a ball over the center fielder head, just out of her out stretched arm tying the game up at six all.
Leading up to this moment with Jesse Harper coming to the plate it had been a rough day to say the least for Harper as one of her errors was what allowed the Dukes to tie the game at four in the fifth. That all didn’t seem to matter for harper though, she quickly on an 0-1 count blasted a ball a mile high towards left field leaving only the question of fair or foul. The ball would stay fair giving Arizona a thrilling 8-6 victory over the Dukes. Usually that would be the end of the game, but in the mist of all the excitement Harper almost went straight from second to home skipping over third pass. An Arizona teammate would point out to harper to touch third to sealing the victory for the Cats.
With the weekend sweep of the Wildcat Invitational Arizona now sits at (15-5) on the season with #1 Florida State coming into town March eighth through the tenth. Arizona will be on the road Tuesday against New Mexico State leading up to the Florida State series.
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