On Thursday, No. 18 Stanford softball defeated Cal 7-4 to take game one of their three-game series on The Farm. Zoe Prystajko (10-3) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role, pitching 0.1 innings while walking one batter and giving up no hits. Alyssa Houston (4) picked up the save for the Cardinal, pitching the final 3.0 innings. Emily Jones hit two solo home runs for the Cardinal. Miranda De Nava (10-5) was the losing pitcher for the Golden Bears in a relief role. Stanford improves to 31-8 overall and 10-6 in the ACC while Cal falls to 29-15 overall and 6-10 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Cal at Stanford-Thursday, April 17th
“It’s a huge win,” Stanford head coach Jessica Allister said after the game. “It thought it was really tough and competitive. I thought Kylie gave us a really good start…It was great. Like I said, I thought Kylie was like tough as nails, giving us four, like work mode first innings. Keeping us in the game. Zoe coming in and getting us out of the dirty inning in the fourth and then Alyssa coming in and shutting it down fifth through seventh. I thought the pitching staff was fantastic. I thought offensively just continuing to come back, come back, come back. We needed every single one of those three runs at the end. And you know, I thought there were some things we could maybe clean up a little bit, but you know, we wiggled our way out of it.”
Cal got on the board in the top of the 1st inning as Elon Butler hit a single to short stop with one out before advancing to third base thanks to a single to right field by Acacia Anders. Anders then stole second base while Butler came home. Cal didn’t score the rest of the inning, making it 1-0 entering the bottom of the 1st.
In the bottom of the 1st, Stanford scored two runs. With one out, Emily Jones went yard to right field. With two outs, Jade Berry singled to right field after which Kyra Chan doubled to right center to bring home Berry. Stanford wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, making it 2-1.
“The first one, I was in a 3-2 count, so I was just looking for anything over the plate,” Jones said of her first homer. “I didn’t really have much freedom there. I couldn’t get too picky with the pitches. So I feel like that freed me up almost just to take a swing on a pitch that I saw.”
In the top of the 2nd inning Cal added two runs. With the bases loaded and two outs, Butler hit an RBI single and advanced to second base, bringing home Kayli Counts and Mia Phillips. Cal wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, making it 3-2.
“Yeah, no Cal is a really good ball club,” Allister said. “Top of their order can really, really, really swing it. And really, up and down, they can score, you know up and down the order. You know, they made some great defensive plays out there and they’ve got a deep pitching staff. So, they’re a really good ball club.”
In the bottom of the 2nd, Stanford evened things up. With Allie Clements on first base and Kylie Chung on third base with one out, Taryn Kern hit an RBI single to bring home Chung and advance Clements to third base. Stanford wasn’t able to add any more runs the rest of the inning, making it 3-3.
In the top of the 3rd inning, Stanford starting pitcher Kylie Chung found herself with the bases loaded and two outs. She would walk a batter to make it 4-3, but was able to force a ground out to end the top of the inning without allowing the Bears to expand their lead. Stanford answered quickly in the bottom of the 3rd as Berry hit a solo shot to center field to make it 4-4 in the first at-bat of the inning. Stanford wouldn’t add any more runs the rest of the inning, keeping it tied.
In the top of the 4th inning, Zoe Prystajko came in to pitch for Chung with runners on first and second base and two outs. Prystajko would walk the first batter she faced to load up the bases, but then forced a ground out to keep it 4-4. In the bottom of the 4th, Emily Jones hit her second solo shot of the night with two outs as she hit the ball deep over the center field fence. That made it 5-4. River Mahler then flied out to center field to end the inning.
“Second home run, I took a pitch, like it was an 0-2 count, no 2-0 count,” Jones recalled. “I took a pitch, I probably should have hit and then that was a big wake up call in that moment that I got to get the bat off my shoulders.”
“Fantastic,” Allister said of Jones. “You know, I think, obviously she got a little bit banged up last weekend. Didn’t play in the midweek and then came out, took aggressive swings right away.”
Alyssa Houston pitched the 5th, 6th, and 7th innings for Stanford, doing a great job of keeping the Bears at bay. She gave up only two hits and got three strikeouts while not walking any batters. She was close to lights out and came up clutch.
“I just think staying calm and just knowing what my job was and just to close out the game and just finish the game,” Houston said of her performance. “And just finish the game out for us and just throw strikes. Get that outs that we need just to end the game and just end the game with a win.”
“Alyssa Houston, our pitching staff, did amazing the entire game,” Jones said of the key to them shutting the door. “Alyssa Houston came in after in the fifth inning and she just shut them down and she did so amazing. So, really Alyssa Houston.”
Stanford’s offense also helped her out in the bottom of the 6th inning to extend the lead: Sydney Boulaphinh homered to left center to make it 6-4 and then later on, River Mahler tacked on an RBI single to bring home Mylia Perez who was pinch running for Kylie Chung. That made it 7-4.
“I don’t know if it feels like we pulled away just because this is an offensive game,” Allister said. “And when you look at scores around the country, like it’s an offensive game, you know? And there’s no such thing as a safe lead, just because that’s the way the game is trending. But it’s good to stay in those games. I think we’re comfortable in this space right now. You know, this is kind of what our season has been like all year and I think we’re comfortable playing in tight games, we’re comfortable playing behind, we’re comfortable knowing we got to continue to put runs up.”
For Stanford, this is a nice win. Cal has a stronger team than their ACC record indicates and they got some bats that can go yard. Winning the home run battle 4-0 made a huge difference for Stanford. And then on top of that, Alyssa Houston was fire in the pitching circle. Just an all-around good performance.
“Absolutely amazing,” Houston said of defeating their rival. “I feel like every single time you want to play, but like when we play Cal, we really want to win and I think just everyone has this desire and this passion and fire that we’re going after it, we’re going for balls, and we’re just playing really hard. And I think in the rivalry game like this, we’re gonna play hard regardless, but it’s tenfold.”
“It’s always a rivalry because Cal’s always a very tough team to play,” Jones added. “Especially like when they come to our house or we play at their field, it’s always like a very tough team to play. And so it’s so much fun to come out and watch our team battle and put up runs every inning and that’s what I love so much about our team.”
Up next is game two on Friday. That will begin at 6:00 PM PT on ACCNX.
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