(Tucson, AZ) Runners left on base was the theme of Friday night’s game where the Cats fell short to Washington in a 2-1 loss. Both teams had their issues in the game with the Huskies committing two uncharacteristic errors giving Arizona more opportunities throughout the game. However, Arizona remained tied with UCLA in the PAC-12 standings thanks to Stanford stunning the Bruins Friday night in a narrow 2-1 victory.
The Cats had to face Washington’s Taran Alvelo who is the exact opposite in terms of pitching style from Friday night’s pitcher Gabbie Plain. Arizona started Alyssa Denham on the mound, who is more of a pitch to contact style of player.
This game had a weird feeling about it from the very start when the Huskies lead off the game to bat. Washington was unable to get anything going until two outs into the inning when Sami Reynolds hit a double in left-center field. This put Kaijia Gibson up to the plate with a chance at creating some two-out damage. She did just that, but not in the conventional way. In fact the ball never left the infield, it took an in-between hop allowing Reynolds to reach first. While that was going on Gibson noticed that Arizona’s infield wasn’t keeping an eye on her while she advanced to third, so she took the chance and ran straight for home plate. By the time the Cats noticed Gibson going for home it was to late. This put the Huskies up 1-0 after the first inning.
The game only got stranger from that point on. In the bottom half of the inning, Arizona had a runner on base with Reyna Carranco coming up to the plate. The at-bat went on for a while as Carranco was able to foul off a couple of pitches. However, Carranco was hit by a pitch that hit both of her hands breaking a thumb in the process. She was not rewarded with the usual walk to first base though, because the umpire made the call that Carranco swung, therefore ruling the play a strikeout which killed the momentum of the inning.
In the bottom of the second inning the Cats battled back to tie the game up at one, from a Rylee Pierce one out home run. Pierce made the mental error in the first inning which gave Gibson the chance to run in for Washington’s first point. After that the inning went cold as Alvelo got the next two Cats out.
With the score all knotted up at one there was a sense that both teams were one hit away from putting this game away. No one could find that key hit to bring a runner home or even move a base runner over.
After the first inning Denham seemed to have found her groove putting up three straight scoreless frames, which gave the Cats a chance to break the game open. During that stretch Denham accumulated just one strikeout, but her defense made plays just like they’ve been doing all season long.
Although the Huskies didn’t stop, they kept getting on base from either walks or hits putting some pressure on the Zona defense and pitching. In the fifth inning it came back to haunt the Wildcats with a single and a walk to start the inning. With runners on base, catcher Morganne Flores laid down a sacrifice bunt moving both runners into scoring position. Reynolds who caught the Cats sleeping in the first inning was the hitter up to the plate. With ice water in her veins, she hit a well placed single, right up the middle that slowly rolled into the outfield scoring two runs that put Washington up 3-1. Denham limited the damage by getting out of the inning with all the momentum in the Huskies dugout.
Arizona had their chance to cut into the lead before the seventh inning but could never get the timely hit when they needed it most. They stranded two runners in the fifth with only one out and the heart of the order due up to the plate. In the sixth they still weren’t able to get anything going at all as Alvelo dominated batters with her fastball and the movement she had behind it.
Much like Friday night, Zona was able to get a rally going with back-to-back singles to open the 7th inning, down by two and the top of the lineup coming to bat. Like many great players and pitchers are able to do at the most pivotal point of the game, Alvelo locked in striking out Alyssa Palomino-Cardoza. Alvelo did have a scare from Hanah Bowen who just missed a single down the left field line that potentially would have tied the game. Later in the same at-bat, Bowen hit an easy flyout to center field. With one last hope and Jessie Harper up to the plate Alevlo got Harper to pop-up right to first base to win the series for the Huskies.
Arizona will try to salvage the series on Sunday, with a start time at noon. With this loss the Cats fall to second place in the PAC-12 and is one game behind UCLA.
