The Utah softball team had a pair of midweek games on Tuesday, hosting SUU in a doubleheader at Utah Softball Stadium.
The Thunderbirds came into the games as the clear underdog, but SUU was hoping to play the role of spoiler on Utah’s home turf. But it never even got that close, as Utah won the first game by a score of 6-1, and completed the sweep by besting the Thunderbirds 10-2 in game two.
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“Overall, I was just very pleased with the complete performance we gave out there,” Utah head coach Amy Hogue said.
Utah never trailed in either of these games, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t have its hands full for the first few innings.
In the first game, neither the Utes nor the Thunderbirds were having success at generating any sort of offense. Utah found itself in positions with runners on base, but just couldn’t capitalize and get them in to score.
“We were getting about a hit in each of those first four innings,” center fielder Kate Dickman said. “We just weren’t able to string hits together consistently during that part of the game.”
After four scoreless innings, the Utes finally got a few of those runners across to put a some runs on the board.
Utah scored two runs in the fourth inning and four runs in the fifth inning, which would end up being good enough for the win. The Thunderbirds were still looking to find their groove as they failed to score until the seventh and final inning of play. .
Leading the way for Utah in the first game was its captain in Dickman. She went 3-of-4 at the plate and also tallied a pair of RBI’s and runs scored.
“It felt good to have that kind of a game,” Dickman said.
Heather Bowen also had a good game as she went 2-of-3 from the plate.
Utah had double-digit hits as a team with 11, while the Utah pitching held the Thunderbirds in check to just five hits. Katie Donovan pitched six innings and allowed four hits while striking out six batters in the process. Donovan improved to 9-4 on the season.
Utah continued where it left off hitting-wise in game two later Tuesday evening. The Utes had another solid hitting performance, racking up 10 more hits, which was much to the delight of their coach.
“I think we’ve been lacking a little bit of confidence at the plate,” Hogue said. “These games helped us get back on track.”
The 10-1 score in the second slate forced the game to end early because of the run rule. The shorter game can’t be much of a complaint for any of the Utah athletes since they have a shorter week to prepare for their Pac-12 weekend series with Cal.
“It’s important for us to get the other things taken care of that need to be taken care of,” Dickman said of how to get prepare for Cal.
The Utes will have a day to rest before they are at it again on Thursday when they begin their three-game home series against the Golden Bears. First pitch is set for 4:00 pm MT at Utah Softball Stadium.
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