Softball’s slide continues against No. 21 Rainbow Wahine
The Utah State Softball team traveled to Hawaii over the weekend attempting to end a 10-game losing streak, facing off against the No. 21 ranked University Hawaii Rainbow Wahine.
Despite a standout performance by starting pitcher sophomore Mandy Harmon, USU could not put down a hard-hitting Rainbow Wahine team, leading to the Aggies dropping their 11th consecutive game, 5-2, on Friday.
Utah State started its Western Athletic Conference opener with a home run straight over the left field fence by senior Kelly Kaneshiro. This was her team-leading sixth home run of the season and 28th of her career, extending the career record for home runs by a USU player. Hawaii came back and moved all-American Kelley Majam, who was hit by a Harmon pitch, to third base on a double. Harmon would then walk Jenna Rodriguez to bring Majam home. Jenna Aguire would bring home Jessica Iwata with a infield single, and Sharla Kleibenstein would cross the plate as Harmon walked another. Hawaii would take the lead 3-1 by the end of the first inning.
The Aggies would threaten to score in the second and third innings, with freshman Kassy Uchida and fellow freshman Kristina Bava moving to second and first on infield singles in the second inning. But Hawaii would keep them scoreless with WAC strikeout leader Stephanie Ricketts racking up five strikeouts by the end of the third inning.
The fourth inning would go scoreless, but the Aggies would rack up another run on senior Megan Mcdonald’s first home run of the season, the fifth of her career, bringing the score to 3-2 at the end of the fifth. The Wahine would reply with back-to-back home runs by Ricketts and Jasey Jensen to push the score to its eventual 5-2 final score.
“It was a close game all the way up to the end, the girls really wanted it,” USU head coach Carissa Millsap-Kalaba said
Saturday the Aggies began their doubleheader against Hawaii with a strong presence by the team’s newcomers, three of whom had base hits against the nearly locked-down defense of Hawaii. Freshman Christina Cummings got to first base on a walk out and junior Ashley Ventura took her place after she was hit by a pitch by Hawaii starter Kaia Parnaby. Parnaby was able to keep the rest of the Aggie line-up off the bases to leave the Aggies scoreless in the first inning.
Cummings would again reach first base as she sent her first collegiate hit, a line drive over to left field. But Hawaii would keep USU scoreless and then mark up four runs as they doubled to bring in two and then sent a home run off starting pitcher Shelbi Tyteca to score two more making it 4-0.
The Rainbow Wahine would seal the victory with the long ball in the fifth. Loading the first and second bases with an error and a single, Kleibenstein sent one over the left gate for her tenth home run of the season to make it 7-0 Hawaii. They added one more run in the sixth inning with a bases loaded walk to end the game 8-0.
The night cap game was delayed multiple times due to the Hawaiian rain. Upon commencement, Hawaii nearly loaded the bases with Iwata walking to first ,stealing second and moving to third on a fly out, and with Rodriguez making it to first. But Iwata was thrown out by second baseman Lindsey Marquez and no more scoring threats were made. Scoreless, the Aggies would go through three pitchers as Dani Chaplin would replace Harmon in the third and Tyteca would then replace Chaplin in the fifth after Chaplin allowed only two hits in the two innings on the mound.
“We planned it out from the beginning for each girl to pitch two innings as hard as they could to keep Hawaii off-balanced,” Millsap-Kalaba said.
Tyteca was clutch from the pitching circle in stopping another long ball scoring session as UH loaded up the bases again in the fifth. Tyteca struck out Aguirre, leaving all the base runners stranded as the Aggies ended the inning without any runs allowed. Hawaii would pull itself out of a close call also as Bava and sophomore Tina Ferguson would take first and second base, but would remain stranded until the end of the inning.
Hawaii would finally break through with two runs scored by Melissa Gonzales and Sarah Robinson on a double over the left by Jensen making it 2-0. Ricketts was able to stop any Aggie attempt to score in the seventh inning, finalizing a Rainbow Wahine victory.
Leaving Utah State with a 5-26 season record and 0-3 in the WAC, seven of those season losses were against ranked teams. The Aggies will go up against BYU this Tuesday 3pm in Provo.
“We will need every pitcher to do their job to keep BYU off balanced,” Millsap-Kalaba said.
– mfiggat@gmail.com