The No. 19 Arizona Wildcats have had a tough few weeks. They spent the last three weeks on the road, playing three games at Iowa State, three at LSU, and three at Oklahoma State. They went 4-6 over that stretch. Getting back to the friendly confines of Rita Hillenbrand Memorial Stadium was a welcome respite.
“It’s been so long,” senior shortstop Tayler Biehl said. “It feels great just to be with our fans, too. It’s just fun to see a full house here. I feel like where we’ve been, it’s just nothing like it is here at Rita. So it’s been super cool to be back with our fans and just play our game and just do what we do.”
What they do is score runs, and they were back to that on Friday night against the Houston Cougars. Arizona defeated UH 9-1 in five innings. Biehl and fellow senior Sydney Stewart were big reasons for that offensive explosion, but several others also had big nights.
Stewart headlined the evening. She was intentionally walked her first time at the plate. When she came up the second time, first base was occupied by Regan Shockey. Houston starter Nevaeh Brown threw two balls and it looked like they were going to move Shockey into scoring position rather than test Stewart.
Then, Brown threw a strike. The unintentional intentional walk seemed off the table. Another ball was followed by a pitch Stewart could handle. It towered into the early evening sky, looking almost like a popup. It wasn’t. Instead, it landed several rows up in Candrea’s Corner for a two-run homer.
“I knew it was going,” Stewart said. “I saw Regan kind of stall a bit to wait it out, but I’m like, ‘Just go.’”
It was Stewart’s 17th home run of the year. It wasn’t the first or the last of the night for the Wildcats. It wasn’t even the last for Stewart.
The Arizona catcher came up with two on and no outs in the bottom of the fourth. This time, it went out to right-center.
“I thought both of them were out off the bat,” said Arizona head coach Caitlin Lowe. “But she did good job, because [the first] one was an offspeed and [the second] one was something hard away. So really proud of her. And Tayler, quite frankly. In that swing, she freed it up.”
“That swing” was the one that put Arizona over the limit for the run-rule victory. Biehl came up with one out and no one on. Her solo shot gave the Wildcats an eight-run lead and allowed them to close the game in the top of the fifth.
All three of those home runs came after Addison Duke broke out a bit of a mini-slump to hit her fifth home run of the year. When Arizona left for its nine-game road trip, Duke was hitting .310. She had one strong game at Iowa State to bump it up to .316, but she stalled after that.
Duke went 4-for-21 with one walk over the nine games away from Hillenbrand. When she returned home, her average had dropped to .283. She went 1-for-2 against Houston to bump it up slightly to .287.
Three Wildcats batted 1.000 against the Cougars. In addition to Stewart’s 2-for-2 with a walk and two home runs and Biehl’s 3-for-3 with a home run, Shockey went 3-for-3 with three runs scored and a stolen base.
Others may not have been perfect, but they still had big impacts. Designated player Tele Jennings has worked herself up in the order to bat cleanup and came in hitting .321. She had a 2-for-3 evening with one RBI. She ended the night with a .339 average.
Sereniti Trice helped get Stewart a pitch to hit by getting on base behind Shockey in the fourth. The second baseman may have only been 1-for-3 but that one hit was big.
Grace Jenkins was 1-for-2 with a walk and an RBI. More importantly, she set the defensive tone from the very start to help starter Jalen Adams settle in.
Adams had to battle in the first few innings. It started with Houston leadoff hitter Ariel Redmond. Redmond hit the first of three singles by the Cougars to start the game, but she wasn’t standing on base when the play was over. Jenkins stopped the ball in right-center, then threw to second from her knees. Redmond was trying to stretch a single into a double, but the ball was waiting for her. Biehl applied the tag and the hit was wiped away.
Houston put two more on after Redmond’s baserunning mistake, but Adams worked around it and her defense helped her get out unscathed.
Arizona’s offense responded immediately. Shockey singled and stole second. Trice struck out, leaving first open for the IBB to Stewart. Jennings stepped up and knocked in the first run of the game with a single.
Biehl stepped in for her first at-bat. She tried to sacrifice the runners over. It was fielded by third baseman Makenna Mitchell, but when she tried to throw to first, no one was covering. Houston’s second baseman ran down the ball to keep it on the infield, but everyone was safe. Bases loaded with one out, and Jenkins drew the walk to double Arizona’s lead.