RANKINGS
EVENTS
I COMMITTED
COLLEGE
ABOUT
The Terrific Ten has you covered on all the best highlights from all the action across college softball on Saturday!
*****
1. Washington outlasted Stanford on Saturday night, the second straight night of softball’s answer to the college football PAC-12 After Dark phenomenon. The Huskies started Kelley Lynch in the circle, then went to Ruby Meylan in relief before Lindsay Lopez closed the ballgame and earned the save. Lynch went four innings, giving up two hits and two walks while striking out four. She did hit two batters, as well. Meylan was even sharper during her outing, notching 2.1 innings of work and allowing two hits while striking out three. Lopez got two flyouts from back-to-back Stanford hitters to end the game. The lone run in the game came off the bat of Baylee Klingler in the fifth inning, when an RBI double down the left-field line drove in pinch runner Brooklyn Carter.
2. Devyn Flaherty took a while to hit her first home run of the 2023 season, but she picked the perfect time to get ahold of one. Flaherty hit a walk-off two-run shot on Saturday to give Florida State a 6-4 win over Louisville in a battle of top teams in the ACC. Flaherty’s dinger came in the bottom of the 11th inning, as the teams played into extra innings in a 4-4 tie. In addition to ending the longest game in Tallahassee since 2018, Flaherty’s longball also stretched Florida State’s winning streak to twelve straight games, their longest streak of the season.
3. One day after run-ruling the Longhorns, Baylor took the series over Texas on Saturday with a 5-2 win. The Bears wasted no time, scoring twice in the first inning and again in the third. Kaci West was solid in the circle for Baylor, throwing six inning of 5-hit, 1-run ball before RyLee Crandall finished the game off in the circle. West induced nine groundouts and seven flyouts, striking out one in her outing. After a wild pitch opened the scoring, allowing one Baylor runner to cross the plate, the Bears rode RBI singles to the rest of their runs, including a 2-run single in the sixth inning by Presleigh Pilon.
4. Minnesota and Michigan put together an offensive explosion, as the two teams combined for 23 runs and 24 hits in Saturday’s affair. Minnesota emrged the victors by a score of 13-10, riding an 8-run fourth inning to the win. Taylor Krapf hit a pair of home runs and notched six RBIs in the game, while Jess Oakland hit a dinger of her own and drove in four runs. Natalie DenHartog also contributed a home run, the 70th of her career, in the outing.
5. In fitting fashion, Kayla Kowalik scored the winning run for Kentucky on Saturday, racing home on a sacrifice fly to give the Wildcats a win over Florida and tie the series against the Gators. More than 2,000 UK fans watched a tight ballgame, one that saw Kentucky build a 4-0 lead early on before Florida came back and the game wound up in a 6-6 tie. Taylor Ebbs’ bases-loaded sac fly handed the Wildcats the 7-6 victory.