Throughout the history of Arizona versus Stanford, the Cardinal had never won a series in Tucson, but on Saturday pitcher Alana Vawter was able to hold off a late rally causing the Wildcats to fall 4-3 in the final game of the season with Selection Sunday around the corner.
In the bottom half of the seventh inning, the Wildcats found themselves trailing 4-1 and it seemed that the game was all but over. Still, Arizona (33-20, 8-16 Pac-12) found a way to get the tying runners on base with Carlie Scupin up to the plate and down by two runs. Scupin was able to hit a 2-2 pitch into the left-center field gap that looked like it could score the game tying run, but pinch runner Blaise Biringer seemed to get a bad read on the ball and was only able to advance to third. After that, Cailtin Lowe's team was unable to tie the game with Paige Dimler grounding out to end it.
"I just thought one through 18, staff included, everyone was into every pitch of every single person's at-bat and creating energy in ways that didn't involve being necessarily up there at the plate," Lowe said about her team battle in the seventh inning. "Everyone was all in for every single pitch and usually when you do that, it puts pressure on the defense, and it makes it a little bit lighter at the plate and that's how I felt like we took our at-bats with some passion and fire and just going at them in the seventh inning."
In the circle, the Wildcats went with senior pitcher Hanah Bowen, who was able to keep her team in the game and worked around six hits left five Cardinal runners on base. Bowen tossed a complete game with four strikeouts and two walks while allowing four runs which only three were earned runs.
The inning that came back to hurt Bowen despite a solid effort was the fifth inning with the Wildcats trailing 2-1. The Cardinal (36-19, 11-13) were able to add on two runs making it a 4-1 game thanks to RBI singles by hitters Kaitlyn Lim and Emily Young.
"Today, her pitches were moving, and she was competing, and she always competes," Scupin said when asked about Bowen's performance in the circle. "She's a competitor but today it was her senior day, and she did a really good job. And she had that passion."
Coming into Saturday's game against Stanford, the Wildcats were 42 in RPI which put them right on the each of the postseason. Arizona has made the postseason 34 years straight.
This season Arizona has key wins over Oregon (twice), Stanford, Washington and Oregon State. However, the Wildcats are 3-12 against top 25 opponents this season.
"You want to go into that day making an undeniable," Lowe said when asked about the teams chances of the postseason. "And I think that's not us this year, but, we're just hoping for more games to play in and I really felt like that in that seventh inning, we're just scraping and scraping and doing everything we can and I think that's the type of team we have to be regardless of postseason or not. That's the kind of softball that we have to play all the time."
Arizona will now await its faith for the postseason, Selection Sunday starts at 4 p.m. (MST) on ESPN2.
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