Softball loses first game of ASU series, drops out of Pac-12 title race
With its loss to Arizona State Thursday, UCLA softball failed to win the Pac-12 title, which was clinched by Oregon. (Katie Meyers/Daily Bruin senior staff)
By Matt Joye
May 9, 2014 12:57 a.m.
It all came down to a matchup between two of the top 10 players in the country.
In the top of the seventh inning Thursday night, with No. 2 UCLA trailing No. 3 Arizona State 2-0, UCLA junior pitcher Ally Carda stepped up to bat against Arizona State senior pitcher Dallas Escobedo with runners on first and second base for the Bruins. Both Carda and Escobedo are among the 10 finalists for the USA Softball player of the year award and were playing against each other for the first time all season.
This time around, Escobedo got the upper hand, as she forced Carda to pop up on the final play of the game. The win brought Arizona State (44-8-1, 15-5-1 Pac-12) to within two games of UCLA (46-6, 17-5) in the Pac-12 standings with two games remaining in the series, while it also eliminated UCLA from Pac-12 title contention.
The Carda-Escobedo matchup in the top of the seventh was merely the climax to a battle that had been going on between the two players the entire game. Carda and Escobedo both pitched complete games for their teams, and Escobedo didn’t allow a hit until the top of the seventh inning.
But in that seventh inning, UCLA turned things around against Escobedo.
At the start of the inning, UCLA players in the dugout turned their hats around and upside down to try to spark a rally, and it worked.
With one out in the inning, junior second baseman Gracie Goulder got the Bruin rally started with a pinch-hit single up the middle, clapping her hands together as she ran from home plate to first base.
“I learned from (my teammates’) at-bats,” Goulder said, as her seventh-inning plate appearance was her first of the game.
Next up was senior pitcher Jessica Hall, who also entered the game as a pinch hitter. Hall followed in Goulder’s footsteps and sent a single up the middle.
After a UCLA out, Carda stepped up to the plate with two outs and a chance to either tie the game or give UCLA the lead. But Escobedo got ahead in the count 0-2, and Carda was unable to battle back and get a hit.
“Honestly, I think I should have been more aggressive,” Carda said. “I wanted to swing early in the count for the first pitch, which was right there, and I didn’t.”
Regardless of the outcome on Thursday night, Carda and the Bruins know that they still have two more games left to turn the series around and finish the regular season on a high note.
“We didn’t execute (tonight), and tomorrow we will,” said coach Kelly Inouye-Perez.
