USU Eastern Press Release
Utah State Eastern Softball went 0-2 in the first day of the Great Western Shootout in Yuma on Thursday. They opened up the day with 0-2 loss against Phoenix College.
“Our defense made some stellar plays all day and everyone had each other’s back. It was more of a two-way street; I had their backs they had mine,” said freshman Bri St. Clair.
The second game of the day was against Eastern Arizona College, a team the Eagle faced last weekend in the CSN Kickoff Classic. They lost to the Gila Monsters 3-1 on Thursday.
“We played better as a team. We were all playing for the name on the front of the jersey instead of the one on the back,” said sophomore Carly Levy.
Then, on Friday, the Eagles went 1-2 in the second day of the shootout. They opened up the day with a 5-7 loss against Central Arizona College. They had a few good hits during the game, such as freshman Alicia Cruz’s solo homerun. Unfortunately, Central had a few more.
In the second game of the day, the Eagles took a close loss of 4-3 against Arizona Western. It was a no scoring game until the bottom of the third when Arizona finally put one on the board and then put two more up in the next inning. The Eagles came back and scored three runs to be put ahead, but Western came back in the fifth to get one more and that was it for both teams on scoring.
For the third game of the day, the Eagles got a 3-2 win over Chandler-Gilbert Community College. Gilbert was the first to score in the top of the third inning and the Eagles didn’t score until the fifth inning. Gilbert came back with one more run in the top of the sixth but the Eagles responded with two that inning to take the lead.
Freshman Nyah DeRyke was the winning pitcher for this game and had a total of seven strikeouts.
“I felt a lot better on the mound this weekend. Last weekend, I struggled to hit my spots, so coming back and striking out seven people felt awesome,” says DeRyke.
To round out the weekend, Utah State Eastern Softball went 0-2 on Saturday. They opened up the day with a 1-7 loss against Glendale Community College.
The Eagles struggled to get the bats going in the game and Glendale got the lead early and kept it. In the bottom of the sixth inning, sophomore Avery Blackhurst was able to get sophomore Ashley Sweat in, but that would be the end of their scoring.
In the second game of the day, the Eagles took an extra inning loss to Yavapai College. Both teams started their innings off with one run until the top of the sixth inning. Yavapai scored and was able to hold the Eagles until the seventh inning, where USUE came back and tied it up, causing them to go into a tie breaker.
Yavapai got the lead by three in the top of the eighth and the Eagles were only able to come back with one.
“We were making good plays even though we had the wind fighting against us. I still had trust in them and they had my back on the field,” said sophomore Carlye Levy.
“It was a high intensity game. It was awesome to hold Yavapai for that long with them being a good program. We’ve made a lot of progress compared to last weekend and I’m excited in the direction the team is going,” said Utah State softball head coach Ryan Smith.
The Eagles will start region play against Snow College on March 1 at home.