No. 21 Arizona wins first Top 25 series this season with game 3 victory over No. 22 Oregon

Technically, the No. 21 Arizona Wildcats won a series against a Top 25 team last season, but it was an early-season victory over a No. 22 ASU team that quickly fell out of the rankings and into the basement of the Pac-12. A series win over No. 22 Oregon, which entered the weekend fourth in the conference standings, seemed like a much bigger deal. The Wildcats closed that deal with a 2-1 series win, defeating the Ducks 3-2 in game three on Sunday afternoon.

It didn’t come easily, though. It took the Wildcats eight innings to dispatch the visitors. The Wildcats led 2-1 going into the top of the seventh, but they couldn’t get the three outs they needed to end it there. Oregon’s Paige Sinicki hit her second home run of the season to tie it up.

Arizona outfielder Jasmine Perezchica came up in the bottom of the eighth with one out and the bases loaded. Arizona had squandered so many chances with runners in scoring position over the weekend that it was no sure thing.

A sacrifice fly would have worked with a different kind of hitter, but Perezchica has just one sacrifice fly in her entire career. That came earlier this season.

“She’s mentally tough,” Lowe said. “I mean, that’s a bases-loaded situation with force outs everywhere. It’s the hardest situation to slap hit against a very good pitcher with the pressure on, and she completely stayed calm and perfectly herself, and it’s exactly what you want to see from a senior.”

Perezchica would go with what she knows: the short game.

The senior came through, knocking in fellow senior Ali Blanchard from third base. Perezchica slapped it high into the air and Blanchard took off, sliding in before Oregon catcher Vallery Wong could apply the tag.

“I was just running as fast as I could,” Blanchard said. “It was a really high chop, so I knew I had a chance.”

The play was reviewed, but the walk-off stood.

“The sad thing about the reviews, you have to kind of like hold your [excitement],” Lowe said. “I mean, I said to [assistant coach Lauren Lappin], ‘Just let me be happy for a second before they go to the camera.’ That’s what’s a bummer about that, but then they get two applauses.”

The Ducks saw a lot of Arizona ace Aissa Silva this weekend despite the fact that she didn’t make a start in the three-game series. Silva pitched 15 ²⁄₃ innings over three games, getting two wins in the process.

“I think for the first time she kind of reinvented herself for a Sunday and just had, some different tools working today that she didn’t have before and quite frankly, not consistently all year,” said Arizona head coach Caitlin Lowe. “And she just came out and was a different person today…I’m just so proud of the way she performed. She was composed, trusted her stuff, and just went at people, and that was just fantastic to see. I mean, she has all those tools normally and they aren’t necessarily all working on the same day. Everything was working…Didn’t see her overthrow…I’m just very proud of her performance.”

Freshman pitcher Brooke Mannon got her second start of the series. She wasn’t quite as effective as she was in Friday’s game, allowing one run and working deep into counts in her two innings of work. She kept her team in it until she handed the ball to Silva to start the third.

Lowe said that Mannon is still being worked back into things after being out with an injury, but the four innings she was able to pitch over the weekend gave Silva a bit of a break.

The Ducks’ run against Mannon came in the top of the first. Kai Luschar singled then immediately stole second base, putting a runner in scoring position with no outs on her 22nd steal of the season. Two batters later, Ariel Carlson drove her in with a double.

Arizona responded in the bottom of the inning, getting one run back. Blaise Biringer doubled to right-center, driving in Regan Shockey from third.

The Wildcats could have had a lot more, though. As has been the pattern all weekend, they failed to get big hits with runners in scoring position. The inning ended on a strikeout from Emily Schepp with the bases loaded.

Arizona’s seven-hitter first inning accomplished something beyond a single run. The Wildcats drove starter Oregon Raegan Breedlove from the game after just two-thirds of an inning. That brought game-two starter Elise Sokolsky into the circle.

Arizona struggled against Sokolsky’s wileyness. In Saturday’s loss, the Wildcats got eight hits and a walk against her but could only push two runs across. It was more of the same on Sunday afternoon.

“She changes speeds and she does it really well,” Lowe said. “She hides the ball and when you try to do too much, she’s really effective. And I thought we were trying to swing at her pitches quite often in both of her appearances instead of really letting the game come to us.”

Olivia DiNardo was one of the hitters Lowe credited with letting it come to her eventually. She put the home team up 2-1 with a solo home run off Sokolsky in the third inning, but that’s the last success either team had off the opposing pitchers until the final innings.

After Sinicki’s home run in the top of the seventh, Arizona’s offense hoped to walk it off in the bottom of the inning. They still couldn’t get to Sokolsky, though. The Oregon pitcher got two groundouts.

Despite her success against the Wildcats all weekend, Oregon head coach Melyssa Lombardi decided to lift Sokolsky in favor of Morgan Scott with two outs and a 1-0 count on Carlie Scupin. Scupin had been one of the hitters who had most struggled with Sokolsky’s off-speed stuff, so it was a bit of a surprise.

Scott threw Scupin three more balls to put her on base, but she got the final out when Allie Skaggs popped up behind the plate to Wong.

Silva was back in the circle an inning after giving up the lead. She had a short memory and got right back to work, trusting that her teammates would pick her up with their offense.

“It definitely sucks to give up a home run and tie the game, but we’re definitely used to extra innings,” Silva said.

Oregon got a two-out single in the top of the eighth but couldn’t do anything with it. Arizona had another shot at the walk-off.

DiNardo gave the Wildcats a one-out base runner when Sinicki committed an error on the ground ball to short. Blanchard came in to run.

Schepp walked on four straight pitches to put two on. Still just one out for Tayler Biehl, who came into the game with at least one hit in five of her previous six games. Make that six of her last seven.

Biehl hit the ball back to Scott in the circle. The Oregon pitcher couldn’t come up with it, and everyone was safe. Bases loaded with one out.

That’s when Perezchica made her presence known. The only ball that left the infield in the inning was the error on Sinicki that reached shallow left field, but it was enough for the Wildcats.

“You can see throughout our conference and throughout the country, Sunday is what it’s about—being gritty and just finding a way,” Lowe said. “Jaz didn’t feel great that whole day and just…did a great job and was able to close it out for us.”

Arizona stays at home to host rival ASU beginning Friday, Apr. 19 at 5 p.m. MST.