USU Softball falls to Fresno State, winning streak ends at nine
FRESNO — Coming into Saturday’s contest, the Aggies were riding a nine-game win streak. The most recent win came against the Fresno State Bulldogs on Friday afternoon, when the Aggies took advantage of the Bulldogs errors en route to a 9-3 win.
Saturday’s game would prove to be the opposite, as the Aggies were defeated 10-2 after they committed five errors.
The Bulldogs scored five of their 10 runs off of USU errors.
In addition to fielding mishaps, the Aggies struggled to get anything going offensively. The team mustered just two hits throughout the game, one coming from Lexi Orozco and the other coming from Clare Raley. Both runs for USU came off of errors by the Bulldogs.
Keeping the USU lineup quiet has been a hard feat to accomplish during this winning streak as the Aggies have averaged just over 6 runs per game during the stretch. The Bulldogs were able to accomplish this as USU hit just .091 during the game.
On the other hand, the Bulldogs batting was scorching from the get-go, as they hit .429 during the contest.
Some of the Bulldogs offensive load was carried by a familiar face. Emery Nielson, who began her career at USU, went 3-3 and tacked on an RBI, while Abby Doughty went 2-2 and also drove in a run.
When the Aggies were handed opportunities to get back into the game, they struggled. When runners were in scoring position, USU went 0-4 from the plate. The Bulldogs, however, excelled as they went 6-11 when runners were in scoring position.
Fresno State’s pitching impressed as Marley Hanlon allowed just two hits and zero earned runs while pitching a complete game.
USU’s Mia Reynolds allowed just three earned runs and eight hits to the Bulldogs. She was relieved by Alyssa Millemon who gave up 2 earned runs. The game was finished by Kapri Toone who pitched just 0.2 innings.
With the loss USU moves to 21-16 on the season, and 7-1 in the Mountain West, putting them in second in the conference behind San Diego State.
The Aggies will look to start another winning streak as they finish out their series with Fresno State on Sunday, April 9 at 12pm MT.