Five home runs sprouted from the University of Hawai‘i softball bats to fuel a 7-1 win over Texas Tech at the Stanford Regional in California Sunday. Kelly Majam, Traci Yoshikawa, Melissa Gonzales, Jenna Rodriguez and Katie Grimes chalked up solo
Five home runs sprouted from the University of Hawai‘i softball bats to fuel a 7-1 win over Texas Tech at the Stanford Regional in California Sunday.
Kelly Majam, Traci Yoshikawa, Melissa Gonzales, Jenna Rodriguez and Katie Grimes chalked up solo homeruns to bring the Hawai‘i NCAA record total to 149 in the season, states a release from the UH athletic department.
With the win, Hawai‘i advances to the NCAA Super Regionals at the Smith Family Stadium. The 16th-seeded Rainbow Wahine advance to meet Alabama, the No. 1 seed, in the best-of-three Super Regionals May 28-29.
This is the second time the Rainbows have advanced to the Super Regionals; the first time was in 2007 when Hawai‘i swept through the UCLA Regionals to advance and face then-No. 1 Tennessee. The Rainbows took the Lady Vols to the third game, but fell one win short of making the Women’s College World Series.
Hawai‘i pitcher Stephanie Ricketts (27-7) went the distance for the win, throwing for seven innings, allowing one run on six hits with three walks and six strikeouts.
Texas Tech opened early when Mikey Kinney walked to first and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Leah Legler. Emily Bledsoe got the RBI on a double to right-centerfield, pushing Kinney across the plate.
But Majam answered in the bottom of the inning with a lead-off homer. That bomb was Majam’s 29th of the season and the sixth time this season she started the game with one.
Yoshikawa pushed the Rainbows up with a solo shot to left-centerfield in the second, her 10th homer of the season. Gonzalez and Rodriguez followed with back-to-back solo shots to start the bottom of the third.
Hawai‘i added three more runs in the bottom of the sixth when Grimes opened with a solo homerun over the leftfield fence for her 11th homerun of the season.
Yoshikawa singled, Majam got her 39th walk of the season and both runners advanced into scoring position on a ground-out. With two outs, Rodriguez hit a two-RBI single for the 7-1 math.
Karli Merlich, Texas Tech’s starter, was tagged for Majam’s solo homerun and was called for three illegal pitches before being replaced by Ashley Brokeshoulder, who worked the next 2 1/3 innings, giving up three runs on six hits with a walk and a strike out. Ashly Jacobs closed with 3 2/3 innings of work, allowing three runs on four hits with three walks and a strike out.
Look for details on the Alabama game in a future edition of The Garden Island.
