March 8, 2008
TEMPE, Ariz. - Mindy Cowles hit a walkoff two-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to lift the No. 1/1 Arizona State softball team to a 3-1, international tiebreaker victory over No. 17/21 San Diego State Saturday afternoon in Tempe, Ariz. The Aztecs, who defeated UC Davis, 7-0, earlier in the day, dropped to 18-8 with the loss, while the Sun Devils extending their winning streak to 22 games and improved to 25-1.
The game featured a pitcher's duel between two of the best hurlers in the nation in SDSU's Christina Ross (Santa Clarita, Calif.) and Arizona State's Katie Burkhart.
Ross (11-7) limited the Sun Devils, who came into the game with a .351 team batting average, 40 homers and 214 runs in 25 contests, to just six hits in seven innings of work. She fanned seven, and allowed three runs (two earned) and two walks in the tough-luck loss. Meanwhile, Burkhart (14-1) gave up two hits and one run, while striking out 12 Aztecs.
After each team put up one run through seven innings, the international tiebreaker rule came into play. SDSU failed to get a runner across, however, giving Arizona State a chance to end the game. After Kaitlin Cochran was placed at second base, Cowles took the first pitch she saw from Ross and cleared the left-center field fence.
In bottom of the first inning, Arizona State loaded the bases with one out on Ross on a SDSU error, a hit batter and an infield single. Ross, as she seems to have done all season, got out of the jam by inducing Krista Donnewirth to pop up weakly to sophomore second baseman Lindsey Marquez (Tustin, Calif.) and striking out Renee Welty to end the threat in the first.
Ross stranded two more Sun Devil runners in the second but wasn't as fortunate in the third. Ross allowed two runners to reach base, Cochran on a walk and Donnewirth on an infield single. One batter later, Kristin Miller singled up the middle to plate Cochran with the first run of the game.
San Diego State finally got to Burkhart in the fourth when junior Tonye McCorkle (Santa Ana Heights, Calif.) took her 0-2 pitch and drove it over the right field fence. It was the first homer of the season for McCorkle, a transfer from Syracuse, and fourth of her career.
The Sun Devils almost took the lead in their bottom half of the frame when Jackie Vasquez singled with two outs and moved to second on an Aztec throwing error. Cochran then singled up the middle as Vasquez rounded third and headed for home. McCorkle, however, fielded the ball and rifled a throw to the plate where senior Megan McDonald (Glendale, Ariz.) applied the tag, once again ending the Arizona State threat.
The score would remain the same until two-homer in the eight.
Senior Tamani Wells (Concord, Calif.) also singled for SDSU, while McDonald and junior Christine Kulick (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) each drew a walk.
Earlier in the day, SDSU banged out a season-high 12 hits en route to a 7-0 victory over UC Davis.
Wells, junior Erin Floros (San Diego, Calif./Mt. Carmel HS), McDonald and Kulick had two hits apiece to pace the offense, with McDonald and Wells each adding two RBI, and seven different players scored a run.
Ross and freshman Samantha Beasley (San Diego, Calif./Steele Canyon HS) combined on the three-hit shutout for the victors. Ross tossed the first four innings, striking out three with two walks and three hits allowed. Beasley struck out six over the final three frames to pick up her first collegiate save.
San Diego State wraps up its play in the Diamond Devil Invitational with another game against Pacific at 11 a.m. Sunday.