Prime opprotunities missed
Although they didn’t come away with a win at the Red Desert Classic in St. George, the women’s softball team showed definite improvement, Utah State University Head Coach Debbie Bilbao said.
“We’re really starting to come into our own.” Bilbao said. “We’re tons better as a team. Our chemistry is starting to come together, and Aggie softball is beginning to turn around.”
Improvement began in their first game Friday afternoon against the University of Oregon, which the Aggies ended up losing 5-1.
In the fifth inning with no one on base, senior shortstop Heather Curtis hit a home run giving the Aggies their only score of the game and putting them in position to win.
Late in the game and still in good position, the Aggies freshman pitcher Lindsay Janssen gave up a key home run with runners on base, which put the Ducks on top for the rest of play.
During the game, USU ended up getting eight players on base with eight hits. Two of those hits came from junior third base player Stephanie Vasarhely, who was 2 for 3 against the Ducks.
“We did a good job of getting people in play, but we weren’t able to get them across the plate,” Bilbao said.
Their second game on Friday gave the Aggies their third consecutive loss of the year to Southern Utah University with a score of 5-0.
USU started the game slow, giving up four runs in the first two innings, and were never able to come back. Bilbao said the loss was caused by a lack of focus.
“We didn’t play well the first two innings defensively and they were,” Bilbao said. “We were happy with the first game and we can’t be happy.”
Saturday the Aggies played two more games against No. 12 University of Washington and against BYU.
The Aggies lost their first game of the day to Washington by a score of 1-0.
Washington’s only score of the game came in the sixth inning off of a wild pitch. Senior pitcher Kristin Hommel, who allowed just one run off of six hits, threw a wild pitch allowing a Washington player on second base to steal all the way to home plate after the Aggies threw the ball to third base with no one covering it.
But the Aggies were proud of how they played, Bilbao said, holding the No. 12 team to only one run, which came from an error.
USU came away with three hits during the game- two from Vasarhely, who once again went 2-3- and one from Curtis.
The following game against BYU proved to be another close game giving the Aggies their fourth loss of the tournament, 7-6.
The Aggies gave up five runs in the third inning which put BYU ahead 5-1.
But due to the hitting of senior outfielder Marnie Andrews, who was 2-2 with a triple and scored two runs along with driving in two runs, and Vasarhely, who went 2-4 with an RBI, the Aggies were able to come back and led BYU 6-5 going into the seventh inning.
The game was determined by a BYU home run in the top of the seventh inning with two outs and a runner on base.
“We did good offensively. We were on the verge of winning that game,” Bilbao said.
The team’s final game was Sunday against the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which gave the Aggies a 1-0 loss because of a lack of energy, Bilbao said.
UNLV scored in the first inning from a single shot home run off the Aggies’ pitcher Hommel, but that wasn’t what gave the game up, she said.
“I thought overall our team was a little sluggish, no energy at all,” Bilbao said.
Because of the sluggishness, Bilbao said she had to take Hommel out- who was doing a great job- and put in Janssen just to get things going.
The Aggies had numerous chances to score, but like in the Oregon game, couldn’t capitalize.
“We need to take advantage of scoring, especially when our pitching team is doing so well,” Bilbao said. “We’re in a position to win every game, we just need to learn how to do it.”