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The Utah softball team competed in the Hawaii Spring Fling tournament last weekend, and though the Utes didn’t come away with their same perfect record that they registered last tournament, they still finished the weekend with a winning record of 3-2.
RELATED: UTES SEE 12-GAME WINNING STREAK END IN HAWAII
Throw in the two victories that Utah garnered prior to heading to Hawaii, and the Utes compiled a 5-2 record this last week.
“This was still a good weekend, going 5-2 even though I would’ve loved to have won six or seven games,” Utah head coach Amy Hogue said.
Despite playing five games in the Aloha State, Utah only faced three opponents. The Utes started the tournament with two games against Longwood University. They then had one matchup with East Carolina, and concluded their tournament play with two games against the home team Hawaii.
Utah came into the tournament riding a 10-game winning streak and extended that streak to 12 games before eventually dropping its first contest in nearly a month’s time.
“We’ve felt pretty confident,” Kate Dickman said. “But we’ve had to fight for every single one of our wins.”
The Utes showed their confidence and fight early on in the tournament. In their first game against the Lancers, they won by a score of 10-1, recording 14 hits in the process. Junior Kristen Stewart led the team with three hits and three runs scored. Fellow junior, Kayce Nieto, pitched three innings and picked up her first win of the season.
On Friday, the Utes had two contests. The first one was another matchup with Longwood, who was looking to get a little revenge from the day before, and the Lancers sure gave the Utes everything they could handle.
Despite that, Utah squeaked out a 3-2 victory thanks to freshman Heather Bowen driving in the game-winning run with a sacrifice fly late in the contest. Miranda Viramontes was able to finish Longwood off in the seventh inning, despite a late-game rally from the Lancers. It was Viramontes’ first complete game of the season.
But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, as Utah’s winning streak was broken later that day. East Carolina proved too difficult of an opponent for the Utes, defeating Utah by a score of 4-0.
“We got a little cold at the plate,” Hogue said of the loss.
The Utes just didn’t seem to have it going in any aspect of their game against the Pirates. Utah was outhit 7-4 in this one, and was shutout for the first time this season. The Utes stranded six base runners, and just couldn’t find anything to get their offense going.
“We just didn’t adjust to the pitcher and we were never able to get going,” Dickman said.
As for the pitching, Katie Donovan didn’t have her best game on the mound, allowing four runs on seven hits in just two short innings of work.
Utah did get back to its winning ways on Saturday, however, as it defeated Hawaii 8-1. Donovan rebounded from her previous outing, and with the help of Mariah Ramirez, only surrendered one hit to the Rainbow Warriors.
“We came out strong in that game,” Dickman said. “We really didn’t like how the last loss felt.”
Utah’s bats were revived in this one, as the team combined for 12 hits. Captains Hannah Flippen and Kate Dickman both had a pair of hits in the winning effort.
The team concluded the tournament with a rematch with Hawaii on Sunday. As the Utes’ earlier games against Longwood proved, its tough to beat a team twice in a row. It was proven again when Hawaii got its revenge on Utah, beating the Utes by a score of 5-1.
Utah will start Pac-12 play this weekend against UCLA in Westwood, Calif. The first game of the series will be on Friday at 7:00 p.m. PT.
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