On Friday, No. 18 Stanford softball defeated Cal 9-3, taking the second game of the series and guaranteeing a series win. Alyssa Houston (11-1) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a relief role while Annabel Teperson (3-4) was the losing pitcher for the Golden Bears in a starting role. Caelan Koch went 3-4 for the Cardinal for three RBIs while hitting a home run. Stanford improves to 32-8 overall and 11-6 in the ACC while Cal falls to 29-16 overall and 6-11 in the ACC.
BOX SCORE: Cal at Stanford-Friday, April 18th
“Yeah, coming out and taking the series, which was fantastic,” Stanford head coach Jessica Allister said after the game. “Obviously we got another big to play tomorrow and we’ll be fired up for it, but I thought it was a good win. I thought we were really productive offensively. You know, it was a little bit harder today. We kind of stuck with it and strung some things together with two outs, you know, in the first inning. Have a runner at first with two outs and then come away with three runs and then again in the third inning, have nobody on with two outs and come away with four, I think in that inning. That’s pretty awesome. I was proud of that. I thought Kylie gave us a great start and you know, Alyssa came in and gave us another great close. So, it was a good win.”
Stanford jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st inning as a wild pitch with the bases loaded advanced Kyra Chan to second base, advanced Jade Berry to third base, and brought home River Mahler. Joie Economides, still at the plate, then hit a single to bring home Chan and Berry.
In the bottom of the 3rd, Chan hit a double to bring home Berry to make it 4-0. Economides then got walked after which Caelan Koch went yard to right field to bring home Economides and Chan. That made it 7-0.
“I kinda just, basically there’s certain attitudes I try to have at the plate,” Koch said of her home run. “And one of them is like, just telling myself, like fierce and dialed in and that at bat, I was really like, you know what? That’s all that matters. As long as I’m fierce and dialed in, then let whatever outcome unfold and I think that freed me up to see a pitch and hit it well.”
“Yeah, you know, I think she, Caelan Koch does a really good job of staying in the process,” Allister said. “And even when she’s not necessarily getting the payoff, she doesn’t waver on her confidence, and she doesn’t waver on her approach. And this was a good matchup for her today and she put a good swing on a good pitch.”
Cal would add three runs in the top of the 4th inning to make it 7-3, but then Stanford added two more runs in the bottom of the 5th to make it 9-3. Taryn Kern got hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to bring home Dani Hayes after which Emily Jones grounded out to bring home Kylie Chung, who was also the starting pitcher but was now operating in a designated hitting spot with Alyssa Houston pitching. Cal would not be able to make up the ground as 9-3 would be the final score.
“We can score up and down the line up and we can score with two outs,” Allister said. “Offensive pressure has been a hallmark of our season, and I think we’re just gaining more and more confidence and it’s a good thing.”
For Stanford, this was nice win. They take the series and go into Saturday’s Big Swing with a lot of momentum. The hitting was great, and the pitching staff once again was sound. Kylie Chung did a nice job setting the tone with 3.2 innings and then Zoe Prystajko (0.1 innings) and Alyssa Houston (3.0) did their job to shut the door for good.
“I think that’s it, exactly. Coming in and doing her job,” Allister said of Prystajko. “And I think when you’re facing teams three times throughout a series, you’re trying to figure out how to put the puzzle together with three pitchers to make it make the most sense. And that’s going to look different on different weekends against different opponents depending on the matchups and depending on kind of where the lineups are stacked with different kind of hitters and so far this weekend it’s been heavy Kylie and Alyssa, but Zoe has come in and done her job and she’ll get an opportunity tomorrow.”
On that note, Big Swing will be on Saturday at 1:00 PM PT on ACCNX. Stanford will look to have an NCAA record crowd in attendance with it being played Stanford Stadium.
“It’s great to play at home in front of a good crowd,” Allister said. “Cal obviously is a tremendous program and good competitive, high intensity games. They’re fun to watch. So, you know, tomorrow should be a blast and hopefully we give them a good game.”
“I think it’s just a great rivalry,” Koch said of facing Cal for Big Swing. “Like, we always want to beat Cal, so I think that’s just like incentive enough to put the foot on the gas. And we have a great crowd, right? Like a lot of people cheering us on. So, like the atmosphere itself is just great for competitiveness…I’m so excited! Everyone needs to come! Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna have so many people here. We’re have a like a freaking raffle, a fair, it’s gonna be so, so cool. So, we’re just all really excited for it. We’re bringing all our friends, family, faculty; like students, students get in free. So, it’ll be awesome.”
“I’m really excited because my whole family is coming out,” Houston said of Big Swing. “I love them. They come tomorrow and I’m super excited to like, just play with them in front of them. I always love them when they come and a lot of my peers are coming and it’s just like super, super cool just to, like you talk about this day, but when it’s here and you’re doing it, you’re gonna be like, I’m super excited just to have the opportunity to play in front of our peers and people that just genuinely love softball and just want to see the stadium and just want to see the stadium and just want to see the [inaudible] and I’m like, super excited.
"I feel like everyone is super excited, but we’re also at the same time, we’re kind of like, we’re gonna stay calm. We’re gonna stay calm, cool, and collected because we’re like, we’ve done it before. We’ve played in big crowd and I just, it’s better because it’s all your peers. Like everyone that loves Stanford is going to be coming and even if you don’t love Stanford, you’re still watching and it’s just super fun, super cool.”
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