Alyssa Barrera hit a grand slam in the sixth inning as Utah Softball put together a furious rally to top No. 3 Washington 5-4 on Saturday.
Trailing 4-0, Utah strung together three-straight singles off UW’s Gabbie Plain thanks to Ryley Ball, Julia Noskin and Ally Dickman. A walk to Ellessa Bonstrom brought home Utah’s first run and Barrera clobbered a 2-2 pitch over the wall in center to send the Dumke Family Softball Stadium crowd into a frenzy.
Barrera was also the hero the last time Utah beat a team ranked in the Top 5 nationally. She delivered a walk-off hit to seal the series against No. 1 Arizona in 2017, also at home.
Plain was 17-1 on the season entering Saturday’s contest, and won the first two games of this series. She had allowed just one earned run in her last eight contests and the five she was tagged for Saturday were a season-high. Utah came into Saturday just 4-for-44 against Plain over the last two seasons, including a perfect game last season in Seattle.
Baseball
Utah 6, No. 12 Arizona State 3 • Utah coach Bill Kinneberg earned his 600th career victory Saturday as the Utes upended No. 12 Arizona State 6-3 at Smith’s Ballpark.
Utah got off to a start, scoring three runs in the first eventually stretching it out to 5-0 to hold on for their 12th win of the season and Kinneberg’s 600th.
Right fielder Erick Migueles and starting pitcher Joshua Tedeschi had stellar days. Migueles went 2-for-4 with two home runs and four RBI and Tedeschi pitched 7.1 innings giving up two runs on seven hits.
The Utes couldn’t have had a better start. Oliver Dunn and Rykker Tom both singled, and Migueles hit his first homer to put the Utes up 3-0 before Arizona State could record an out. The Utes tacked on two more runs to their lead with an RBI from Isaac Deveaux to score Shea Kramer in the third, and then Dunn got an RBI in the fifth to score Deveaux.
Tedeschi was working early, only giving up two hits through six innings. The Sun Devils, one of the best hitting teams in the NCAA, got their bats going in the seventh, but Tedeschi limited them to only two runs on four hits during his outing.
BYU 4, Washington 0 • A gem by Cougar pitcher Justin Sterner helped BYU roll to a 4-0 shutout victory over Washington at Husky Ballpark on Saturday.
Coming off a 7-3 victory in game two, BYU (26-10) battled with the Huskies (17-17) through five scoreless innings. The Cougars broke through in the sixth with Brian Hsu leading off with a bunt single, the advancing to second on a sac bunt. Brock Hale doubled to score Hsu, then Jackson Cluff and Keaton Kringlen walked to load the bases.
Mitch McIntyre was hit by a pitch on a 3-2 count to score BYU’s second run; Abraham Valdez followed with a walk to bring in Cluff and give the Cougars the 3-0 advantage.
Sterner earned his seventh win of the year, allowing just one hit through six innings. He left the game in the seventh, finishing with a career-high-tying seven strikeouts with no runs and no walks allowed.
Lacrosse
Cleveland State 17, Utah 8 • James Sexton had his second hat trick of the season with three goals to lead the Utah lacrosse team, but the Utes still to Cleveland State, 17-8 on Saturday at McCarthey Field.
Although Utah scored the first goal of the game in the opening minute, Cleveland State scored the next four and continued to steadily pull away throughout the game. Utah trailed 7-4 at halftime and 11-4 after the third quarter.
“It wasn’t our day,” head coach Brian Holman said. “We made mistakes early. I didn’t get the sense that the guys were mentally in it. We tried everything we could, changed our personnel and went as deep as possible. I’m happy for some of the guys who got on the field and played well and disappointed for some of the guys who really tried hard, but they were better than us. We lacked a collective effort today, which is my fault and I’ll do my best to correct that."
Sexton led Utah with three goals and Cam Redmond had two for the Utes. Josh Stout, Liam Cavanaugh-Fernandez and Quinault Mackey each had goals. Stout also had an assist for two points, Brandon Wilson had two assists and Chris Belcher and Jack Zarnik both had assists on the day.
Donny Stock went 8-of-19 in faceoffs and led Utah with six ground balls. Samuel Cambere and Belcher had three ground balls each. Liam Donnelly, Daniel Costa and Zack Johns each saw time in goal with Johns making six saves on the day.