Softball drops two to Arizona
Even with two homeruns, tallying five RBI's on the night by Christina Zambrana, ASU was not able to pull out a win as they dropped the last two games of the "Duel in the Desert" series to the Arizona Wildcats 3-2 in game one and 10-6 in game two. Hillary Bach took both losses on the night putting her record to 22-7 on the season. The losses put the sixth-ranked Sun Devils at 7-8 in the conference and 37-13 overall and the Wildcats push to 11-4 in the conference and 39-11 overall.
In the first game of the two game series, the Wildcat offense came out swinging in the first inning as Brittany Lastrapes hits a solo homerun finding the right field fence. Following in her footsteps was K'Lee Arrendondo also hitting a dinger over the right field fence giving Arizona a two run lead.
Retaliating in the second inning for the Sun Devils was Christina Zambrana cracking a two run homer scoring Krista Donnenwirth from first, after getting on with a single to right field.
In the bottom of the fourth Arizona's Victoria Kemp had her own solo homerun over the left field fence to regain the lead and collect the victory for her team.
Wrapping up the "Duel in the Desert" in the second game, getting the Wildcats on the scoreboard first was Jenae Leles with a three run homer that went off the light pole in right center field to score K'Lee Arredondo and Brittany Lastrapes. Adding another two run homer was Victoria Kemp, plating Lini Koria from first, giving the Wildcat an early five run lead.
Ashley Muenz fired back in the bottom of the second inning with a solo shot over the center field fence to get the Sun Devils on the board. Next in the lineup was Christina Zambrana, who cleared two fences in center field to tally another ASU run with back-to-back solo shots.
After loading the Sun Devil bases in the bottom of the third, Wildcat pitcher Jennifer Martinez hit Ashley Muenz to plate Kaitlin Cochran to give ASU their third run of the game. Tying up the ballgame was Christina Zambrana who hit a hard shot up the middle to plate Katelyn Boyd and Katie Crabb for two RBI's to bring the score to an even five.
The deadlock was shortlived though, as Brittany Lastrapes cleaned right center field to tally a three run homerun, to give the Wildcats their lead back going into the bottom of the fourth inning.
Answering was Katie Crabb, finding the right center field gap, with an RBI to score Katelyn Boyd, bringing the Sun Devils within two runs.
In one of the few RBIs not a homerun on the night, Lini Koria hit an RBI single, scoring Jenae Leles from second. Following Koria was Victoria Kemp who hit a long fly ball to right field that was dropped by Lesley Rogers to plate Stacie Chambers, giving the Wildcats a commanding four run lead that would give them their final runs and stable enough lead to collect the victory.
The Sun Devils will travel to California this weekend to take on Stanford Friday, May 1st at 7:00 and then on to take on Cal in a two game series May 2nd at 1:00 and May 3rd at 12:00.