Two weeks ago, the Husky Softball season appeared to be at an inflection point. The Dawgs had played below their standards at the Mary Nutter Classic, giving up 15 runs to #4 Oklahoma in five innings dropping their finale to Loyala Marymount. The pitching looked unstable and the defense did not look sharp enough. The Huskies quicky rebounded with five wins against lesser teams last week, all in five innings.
This weekend, the Huskies opened Big 10 play with a home series against Northwestern. Before that game, they hosted cross-town rival Seattle U. in the Husky Softball Stadium season opener. The Redhawks again asked the right questions of UW’s pitching in the early-going, putting two runs on the board in the top of the first. The Huskies’ bats took over from there. They scored one in the 2nd, four in the 3rd, one in the 4th, two in the 5th, and three in the 6th go polish off their adversaries 11-3 in six innings. Alexis DeBoer hit her obligatory home run, but the offense was more death by a thousand cuts. The Huskies tallied 11 hits (seven singles) and eight walks in the game to keep the basepaths busy throughout.
After that midweek game, the struggling Wildcats came to Seattle. Although they are a conference opponent, wins over Northwestern probably don’t tell us much more about UW’s ceiling than those over teams like San Diego State and Cal Poly a week ago. Nonetheless, the results were positive for the Huskies, with two offensive explosions sandwiched around a dominant pitching performance.
The Dawgs won the opener 13-2 in five innings. UW came to bat only four times and scored at least three runs in every inning. DeBoer crossed the dish four times and Giselle Alvarez knocked in four; both of the two sluggers added another homerun. Morgan Reimer was solid in the circle, going the full five innings. She only allowed three hits and two walks, but a triple in the fourth inning drove in two to break up the potential shut-out.
The bats went quiet in the Saturday game, but a combined shut-out kept UW’s winning streak alive. Sophia Ramuno started with five shutout innings, though she had to pitch around a runner on third in three of her five innings. Allie Thomsen and Ryan Maddox each pitched a shut-out inning of relief, allowing only a HBP by Thomsen between the two of them. Northwestern managed only four hits in the game, but that was more than UW, who only notched three. The Huskies were also scoreless into the sixth when Jadyn Glab singled, DeBoer walked, and Alvarez singled. However, on the Alvarez single, Northwestern committed two separate errors that allowed both baserunners to score. They were the only runs of the game and UW won 2-0.
The series finale on Sunday looked a bit like the Seattle U. game earlier in the week. Once again, the opponent got on the board first. This time, Northwestern’s Kansas Robinson hit a two-run bomb in the first inning off of Reimer to take the early advantage. The Huskies cut the lead to 2-1 on a fielder’s choice in the home half, but the Wildcats put up two more in the second, this time on an error by SS Melody Acevedo. Trailing 4-1 in the second inning, the floodgates opened. Alvarez capped her big week with a grand slam to immediately reclaim the lead. The Dawgs scored four more in the third, including homers by Acevedo and Sophi Mazzola. Acevedo drove in another in the sixth to fully redeem herself for the error earlier in the game and polish off Northwestern 10-4.
With four more wins on the week, UW has won nine in a row to reach 19-6 overall, 3-0 in early Big 10 play. Maryland comes to town this weekend. The Terrapins are better than Northwestern, but not by much. They are 11-11 and do not have a win over a ranked team on the season. It’s very possible, even likely, that UW will run the winning streak up to 12 over the next weekend.