It took 10 innings, but the Utes stretched their seven-game winning streak to eight, beating Utah Valley 4-2. Utah’s win column might have grown, but the contest harkened back to Utah’s early struggles against non-conference opponents.
Utah’s pitching staff stole the show. Naomi Amu pitched seven innings and gave up one earned run. Kayce Nieto and Mariah Ramirez pitched shutout ball the final three innings.
Neither offense was clicking early as both teams were scoreless heading into the seventh inning. But pitching and defense were clicking for both teams as the Utes had just four hits while the Wolverines notched just one.
That all changed in the seventh inning. From that point on, it was a back and forth game going all the way into the tenth inning. It began with the Wolverines making an error that allowed Jackie Sweet to score from second. Utah Valley quickly answered with an RBI of its own, making the score 1-1 after seven.
The eighth began with Utah’s Marissa Mendenhall hitting a home run, but once again the Wolverines answered, this time off an error the Utes made. The ninth inning mirrored much of the rest of the game as neither team was able to score any runs.
Finally, the game came down to the 10th inning. Utah opened up getting runners on second and third, and Ramirez’s single down the right field line brought Kate Dickman home to give the Utes a 3-2 lead. A Shelby Pacheco sacrifice fly brought Chalese Fankhauser home to give the Utes their final two-run cushion.
Ramirez said the game was a grinding contest before both offenses heated up late.
“I was excited because we were able to get the job done, and everyone did their job,” Ramirez said.
Head coach Amy Hogue is happy the team won, but she said the team will need to make sure they do a better job of hitting than they did Tuesday. Utah normally scores more than five runs and will need to make sure the players put up more runs going into their upcoming games.
Utah’s pitchers and defense executed their game plan perfectly. The pitchers were making sure they were giving the defense the opportunity to get easy outs, and the defense came though. Amu did the majority of the pitching and played in seven innings. However, Hogue said she expected the team would need every pitcher at the bottom of the seventh inning.
“I had a feeling one run wasn’t going to be enough,” Hogue said. “At that point, all I thought was do we have all of our pitchers ready because we might need to use them all.”