Seniors shine as Arizona softball run-rules Kansas to open 2020 season

Mariah Lopez | Photo by Ryan Kelapire/AZDesertSwarm.com

TEMPE — In its last first game, Arizona’s star-studded senior class showed why it’s so special.

Jessie Harper and Alyssa Palomino-Cardoza launched three-run homers and Mariah Lopez had a strong debut in the circle as No. 5 Arizona run-ruled Kansas 11-1 in five innings to open the 2020 season.

The Wildcats will complete the Friday doubleheader at 5 p.m. MST vs. Seattle, the better of the two teams.

Harper, who led the NCAA with 29 homers last season, is now 25 long balls shy of tying Katiyana Mauga’s program record of 92. Her second-inning blast gave the Wildcats a 6-0 lead.

Fellow All-American Palomino-Cardoza, who hit 19 homers in 19, walked the game off in the fifth with a no-doubter to center after Harper was pitched around.

Freshman Janelle Meono became the first Wildcat freshman to lead off in her UA debut since Hallie Wilson in 2012. She walked in her first at-bat and scored the game’s first run on a wild pitch. She also scored on Harper’s homer after reaching on a fielder’s choice.

Meono had a hiccup in left field in the third, mishandling a single that allowed a pair of Jayhawks to advance into scoring position with one out. Lopez picked up her teammate by fanning the next two batters with riseballs.

The Wildcats made another defensive miscue in the fifth, when first baseman Ivy Davis, making her first-ever start at that position, could not corral a sharp grounder. When she did scoop it up, she tried to flip it to Reyna Carranco who came over from second to cover the bag, but it skipped past her, putting two more Jayhawks in scoring position.

Again, Lopez danced out of danger. She induced a groundout and foul out to escape the jam. The Oklahoma transfer went the distance, allowing four hits and one walk while striking out six, the lone blemish coming in the fourth when she surrendered a solo homer to Morgyn Wynne.

Kansas pitchers had trouble finding the zone, issuing eight free passes. Starter Lexy Mills was pulled for Hailey Reed after walking the first three batters she faced.

Two walks and a single loaded the bases for Peanut Martinez in the fourth, but she bounced out to end the frame.

Carranco drove in a pair of runs, with an RBI groundout in the second and an RBI single up the middle in the fifth.

Malia Martinez lifted a sacrifice fly in the first.

Izzy Pacho, filling in for Dejah Mulipola, clubbed a solo homer in the fifth, kickstarting a six-run inning that was capped by Palomino-Cardoza’s walk-off blast.

from Arizona Desert Swarm - All Posts https://ift.tt/31Ctrxm
via IFTTT