On Saturday, #5 Stanford softball defeated San Jose State 10-2 on the road. Stanford freshman righty Alyssa Houston (3-0) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role while San Jose State junior righty Mia Reynolds (1-6) was the losing pitcher for the Spartans in a starting role.
BOX SCORE: Stanford at San Jose State-Saturday, March 9th
“Yeah, good win,” Stanford head coach Jessica Allister said after the game. “Coming out, put up ten runs on fourteen hits, that’s a good day. I thought our pitchers did a good job of battling out there. I thought Alyssa worked out of some situations, made some big pitches in some big moments and then Kylie came in and filled the zone. Threw ground balls. So, good win.”
Stanford went right to work in this game, scoring seven runs in the top of the 1st inning. Taryn Kern hit a leadoff triple after which River Mahler doubled to right field to bring home Kern. Ava Gall then flied out to left field for the first out before Aly Kaneshiro reached first base on an error to advance Mahler to third base. Caelan Koch then doubled to left center, bringing home both Kaneshiro and Mahler.
Up 3-0 with only one out, Stanford was just getting warmed up in the top of the 1st. San Jose State already decided to make a pitching change as Reynold was replaced in the circle by freshman lefty Alexis Toner. As you are about to see, Toner wasn’t able to slow things down the rest of the inning.
The first Cardinal batter Toner faced was Emily Jones, who hit a single to the pitcher to advance Koch to third base before stealing second base with Jade Berry at the plate. Berry would hit a single and advance to second base on the throw while Jones and Koch both scored. It was now a 5-0 lead for Stanford. Johnna Schroeder then singled to short stop to advance Berry to third base. Schroeder then stole second base while Kaitlyn Lim was at the plate. Lim then popped up to second base for the second out. It looked like maybe the Cardinal would finally cease scoring for the inning.
“It’s been good to see Jade get some good swings off,” Allister said of Berry, who is a freshman. “She’s a hitter. She’s a real hitter.”
“Just trying to help my team out,” Berry said of her two-RBI hit. “Stringing together at-bats in that first inning. I thought everybody kinda started off good. But yeah, just trying to help out my team there.”
However, Stanford found a way to score two more runs as Kern reached first base on an error, allowing Schroeder and Berry to score before she was tagged out at first base on a play that went second base to catcher to short stop to first base. That ended the top of the inning as Stanford led 7-0.
“You’re never gonna feel bad about putting up seven in the first inning,” Allister said with a smile. “It allows you to do a couple of different things. It allows you to get some people in the ball game and get them some opportunities, which is wonderful. And then for your pitchers to really just fill the zone. So yeah, it’s a good thing.”
“It was a lot of confidence,” Berry said of being part of a seven run inning. “Just helping out our pitcher. Wanted them to feel confident going into the first inning. Just pitching with confidence there.”
In the bottom of the 1st inning, Houston walked Taylor Squires and Aubrie Thomas, giving the Spartans some hope. However, Houston would get the next three batters out, keeping it a 7-0 lead for the Cardinal. One fly out, one foul out, and one strike out looking.
Neither team scored in the 2nd inning and neither team made a pitching change. It thus remained a 7-0 game entering the 3rd inning.
In the top of the 3rd inning, nobody scored for Stanford as only Schroeder got on base by hitting a single to left field with no outs. With two outs, Schroeder would actually get caught stealing second base to end the top of the inning. In the bottom of the 3rd inning, San Jose State was able to get on the board. Squires would hit a single to short stop after which Thomas got walked. Reina Zermeno then reached first base on a fielder’s choice as Thomas was out at second base while Squires advanced to third base. Shay McDowell then reached on a fielder’s choice while Zermeno was out at second base and Squires scored. Ahymia Noriega then struck out looking to end the bottom of the inning. It was now a 7-1 lead for Stanford through three innings.
In the top of the 4th inning, Stanford did not score any runs. With one out, Gall got walked after which she was replaced by Ellee Eck who came in to pinch run. Eck would steal second base before Ella Murchison struck out swinging. Eck then was caught stealing third base to end the top of the inning.
In the bottom of the 4th, Ashley Rico hit a double for San Jose State with no outs to give their offense some life. Korie Thomas then hit a sacrifice bunt for the first out, advancing Rico to third base. With two outs, Haley Reeve hit a single to short stop to bring home Rico. After Reeve advanced to second base on a passed ball with Squires at the plate, Squires grounded out to second base to end the bottom of the inning. 7-2 lead for Stanford.
In the 5th inning, neither team scored and neither team made a pitching change. It was still a 7-2 lead for Stanford entering the 6th inning. They had a chance to put the game out of reach and force the mercy rule by going up by 8+ runs at the end of the 5th inning, but they were unable to do so.
“Absolutely,” Allister said if ending the game in five innings was a goal. “I think we did a lot of things really well today and then we also made a lot of mistakes and threw away some at-bats in some situations where we could have ended the game a little bit earlier. So I think there’s both sides there. But hey, you never want to let teams hang around. Teams hang around and that’ll come back to bite you.”
However, Stanford would find a way to score in the 6th and 7th innings to make the final score look better. In the top of the 6th, Lim hit a single after which Kern hit a double to left center to bring Lim home. Stanford would not score any more runs in the 6th inning making it an 8-2 game.
In the top of the 7th inning, Stanford would add two more runs as Lim hit a two-RBI double with one out to bring home Berry and Jones. This gave Stanford a 10-2 lead, which ended up being the final score.
Just to quickly address the pitching, both teams made one more pitching change before the day was through. San Jose State replaced Alexis Toner with righty Ava Conti in the 7th inning while Stanford replaced Alyssa Houston with righty Kylie Chung in the 6th inning. Chung has been growing into her relief role for the Cardinal and they wanted to give her some more innings. She has pitched 4.1 scoreless innings in three appearances. They’re gonna need more of that from her as the season goes on.
“Kylie is doing great,” Allister said of Chung. “And she’s been doing great. She had an excellent fall for us, she had an excellent January for us, and now her last three outings, she comes in and she has the two great innings against Colorado State that gets us the win and maybe it was one? One great inning against Colorado State that gets us the win and she comes out and throws great yesterday and then she comes out today and throws great again. So, it’s gonna take everybody. It’s gonna take everybody at different times. But she’s got the drop change, which is a real good complement to what the rest of our pitchers are doing. So, it’s great to see her have some success out there.”
“Alyssa is a stud, I love Alyssa,” Berry said of her fellow freshman teammate. “I’m glad she’s pitching for Stanford. It’s so much fun and she did great today…I really love the team and I love the atmosphere here. The coaches and the players, they all bring a fun atmosphere and it’s good to play for these coaches.”
For Stanford, this was a pretty smooth win. When you score seven runs in the first inning, that’s usually a sign that it’s going to be your day. Stanford should feel good about how they performed and how they easily took care of business. Especially since it was on the road. The hitting was great and then Houston and Chung were both good in the circle pitching. Houston struck out four batters in 5.0 innings pitched. She’s having a great freshman season so far.
“Definitely, I think everybody strung together at-bats today,” Berry said. “Hitting good, it brings a lot of confidence to the team to everybody.”
Stanford would then play on Sunday at home against Loyola Marymount and win that game by a final score of 1-0. Stanford sophomore NiJaree Canady was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role as she improves to 8-2 on the season. Senior Regan Krause got the start at pitcher but was replaced after just two innings after giving up four hits. Canady only gave up one hit over the final five innings, striking out 10 batters in the process. Stanford is now 18-4 overall on the season.
Up next for Stanford is home doubleheader against Sacramento State on Wednesday. Game one will be at 3:00 PM PT while game two will be at 5:30 PM PT. Game one will air on Pac-12 Insider and game two will air on Stanford Live Stream.
Following their home doubleheader against the Hornets, Stanford will have a road series at #21 Cal to start Pac-12 play. That will begin on Friday at 3:00 PM PT. Game two will be on Saturday at 3:00 PM PT and game three will be on Sunday at 2:00 PM PT. Pac-12 Bay Area will air the first two games while Pac-12 Networks will air the game on Sunday.
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