First-Inning Outburst, Strong Pitching Gives Washington Win Against UCLA

Sunday, March 22

Seattle, WA

6:00 PM

University of Washington

29-7, 0

UCLA

29-6, 0

UCLA

Washington

Photo by: Washington Athletics

First-Inning Outburst, Strong Pitching Gives Washington Win Against UCLA

March 24, 2015 | Softball

Box Score

By: Washington Athletics

SEATTLE -- No. 18 Washington plated six runs in the first inning Monday night in the finale of its series against UCLA at Husky Softball Stadium to earn a 6-2 victory. For the third consecutive game of the series, Washington scored in the first inning to take an early lead. This time, however, the Huskies held that lead to hand UCLA their first conference loss and snap a 15-game win steak by the Bruins.

"It's always good to salvage a series and play well," head coach Heather Tarr said. "I liked how we played tonight. We played mature and with a lot of pose. Kasey Stanchek and Kimberlee Souza did an awesome job of executing the game plan against some very good UCLA hitters. Defensively, I thought we played very solid and it was nice to get a couple of new players in some different positions. Offensively, We were getting ahead in the first two games only by two runs and we made it a point to keep pushing and getting as many runs as we could early on."

Washington improves to 29-7 overall on the season with this victory, 2-3 in the Pac-12. UCLA now is 29-6 on the year, 5-1 in the conference.

Senior Kasey Stanchek (10-2) was impressive keeping a dangerous UCLA offense at bay to earn the win. She allowed just two runs on seven hits and three walks with four strikeouts in her complete-game effort.

UCLA hit a one-out single in the first frame but Stanchek immediately responded, recording a strikeout and inducing a ground out to end the inning. The Husky bats went on to explode for six runs in the bottom half of the inning. Senior Kylee Lahners was hit-by-pitch and freshman Kelly Burdick singled before sophomore Ali Aguilar was also hit-by-pitch to load the bases. With one-out, sophomore Casey Stangel delivered a two-RBI single to plate Lahners and Burdick to put the Dawgs up 2-0.

After freshman Trysten Melhart drew a walk, UCLA made a pitching change bringing in Johanna Grauer with one-out which ended up working out in Washington's favor. The Huskies jumped on her early as Kimberlee Souza's grounder to third scored Aguilar for the Huskies third run of the game. Just one batter later, freshman Julia DePonte unloaded on her first collegiate home run, a three-run shot to put the Dawgs on top, 6-0.

UCLA got on the board in the third when Delaney Spaulding hit a one-out home run to make it 6-1 game. The Bruins tacked on another in the fourth, leading off with an infield single and drawing a walk. After a heads up play by senior second baseman Kelli Suguro got the runner out at second, UCLA had runners on first and third for Ally Carda who delivered a double to plate a run and cut the Bruin deficit to 6-2.

However that was all for UCLA, as Stanchek and the Husky defense worked out of several jams, keeping eight Bruins runners on base.

Washington returns to action this Wednesday, traveling to Portland, Ore. to play Portland State before a three-game series against Oregon this weekend.