Lack of hitting hinders USU softball
The woes of not winning continue for the ladies of the Utah State softball team.
Sunday, Utah State had just two hits and gave up another loss, this time to Long Island 2-1. This was the final game of the Capital Classic Softball Tournament.
“I thought that first Iowa win in Sacramento would have pushed us over the top,” said Head Coach Debbie Bilboa. “You know Iowa just dropped out of the Top 25 a couple weeks ago, so we beat a Top 25 team. What we did this weekend was our ERA went down, but unfortunately, so did our batting average. We didn’t put the ball in play very much this weekend and had we done that, in my opinion, we would have went 5-0.”
Instead, the Aggies finished the weekend 1-4 to bring their record to 3-18.
In the final game, Leslie Higley gave up seven hits and two runs, four of those hits came in the second inning.
On Saturday, the Aggies surrendered a 4-0 victory to the Boilermakers from Purdue. Diana LaRiva, pitcher for the Boilermakers, pitched her second career no hitter to dominate USU’s bats.
Only three Utah State players – Jessica Garnett, Haven Vance, and Sara Fleming – were able to reach base during the game, all of which were walks.
Garnett was the third out of the first inning when she was caught stealing.
Vance led off the fourth inning with a walk but the Aggies proceeded with to hit two fly ball outs and a ground out to end that inning.
And in the sixth inning Fleming led off with a walk but wasn’t able to cross home plate because of two strikeouts and a fly out to end that inning.
Higley was pitching that game for Utah State. She allowed 11 hits and four runs, but didn’t walk anyone.
Utah State lost another tight game to the host of the Capital Classic, Sacramento State 4-2 later that day.
During that game, the Aggies swung the bats pretty well but couldn’t drive any runs home after the first inning when they scored their only two runs. They scattered six hits throughout the whole game.
“The biggest obstacle is our offense just getting people in when we’re in those tough situations,” Bilboa said. “Anytime we can get people in scoring position we need to be able to convert and score.”
Fleming hit her first home run of the season, bringing home the Aggies’ only two runs of the game. Later in that first inning, Sacramento State evened up the scored at 2-2 and added two more runs one in the third inning the other in the fifth inning.
“We are very close, you can taste it, we all get excited because you look at our lineup anywhere one through nine you know they have a chance,” said Kelly Leos.
On the first day of the Capital Classic, Higley led Utah State to an upset victory over Bilboa’s alma mater, Iowa 2-1. This was before they were defeated by St. Mary’s 2-0.
“It’s always nice to beat a team you played at,” Bilboa said. “The coach that is there was my coach and I utterly respect her and it was a good win for us. Our kids worked very hard for it and played until the last minute. That’s what we’re asking out of them every time.”
Higley tossed another complete game six-hitter, only allowing one run in the victory over Iowa. Iowa scored its only run in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Utah Sate scored its two runs in the top of the seventh inning. USU scored on an error by Iowa and two hits – one from Garnett and the other from Quela Henderson.
Higley then struck out two of Iowa’s last three batters to give the Aggies their third win of the season.
In the game against St. Mary’s the Aggies only recorded one hit, a single by Casey Smith. This hit came in the top of the fifth inning with two outs, but Candice Hatch grounded out after that to ensure a win for St. Mary’s 2-0.
St. Mary’s scored the first of its runs in the bottom of the second inning while the last run came in the bottom of the seventh inning.
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu