Even when pitching, defense stumbles, Fresno State softball shows its offensive might

Fresno State gave up a seven-spot, matching its softball season-high for runs allowed in a game in just one inning on Thursday against UC Santa Barbara.

It was a messy third inning, which included two errors, a walk, a hit batter and a wild pitch.

Still, the Bulldogs manged to bounce back, pulled ahead just one inning later and went on to beat the Gauchos 10-9 in the opening game of the Fresno State Invitational at Margie Wright Diamond.

“I knew we had enough game left to chew away at it,” Bulldogs coach Linda Garza said. “So that was the one thing that was fortunate. And then it was, ‘How are we going to stop this? Do we play back? Do we give up some runs and allow for a double play?’ Our defense is usually something we can count on and honestly our pitching has been something we can count on.”

The offense has been something to count on, too.

The Bulldogs (9-3), who on Friday will play Illinois-Chicago at 5 p.m. and Ohio State at 7:30 p.m., had hit .389 and scored 50 runs in their first five home games. So down six runs to the Gauchos just meant it was time to get to work.

Fresno State scored four times in the bottom of the third and then five times in the fourth to go up 10-7, the big blow a bases-loaded double with two outs off the bat of second baseman Miranda Rohleder.

Catcher Kelcey Carrasco drove in two runs with her third and fourth hits of the season – an RBI single in the third and another in the fourth.

Vanessa Hernandez also drove in two runs with a single in the third.

In a nice bounce-back from a 7-3 extra-innings loss Tuesday at Stanford, Fresno State (9-3) scored 10 or more runs for the fourth time in 12 games. McKenzie Wilson and Kaitlyn Jennings had triples to bring the Bulldogs’ season total to 16, leading the nation and as many as they had last season in 57 games.

Wilson had three hits and is batting .512 (21 for 41) and has scored 16 runs in 12 games.

The Bulldogs did all of that damage against the Gauchos’ top two pitchers – starter Felisha Noriega (2.10 ERA) and Emily Schuttish (2.88).

Fresno State also got some big innings out of left-hander Danielle East, who struggled getting out of the third inning pitching behind starter Danielle Lung. East retired seven batters in a row and nine of 10 from the fourth to the sixth innings, allowing the Bulldogs to come back.

“She is really good at throwing to lefties and once she got out of that jam and I feel like once she settled down she was able to use her stuff,” Garza said.

“I thought she pitched to contact really well at times, was able to get ahead and got them to roll over, to fly out some and we really needed those donuts going out for a little bit to get us time to chew at that lead.”

This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 10:57 PM.