On Friday, No. 8 Stanford softball defeated Saint Mary’s 8-6 to win their opening game of the NCAA tournament. Stanford sophomore NiJaree Canady (19-4) was the winning pitcher for the Cardinal in a starting role while Saint Mary’s redshirt sophomore Avrey Wolverton (5-8) was the losing pitcher for the Gaels in a starting role.
BOX SCORE: Saint Mary’s at Stanford-Friday, May 17th
“Yeah, really great win,” Stanford head coach Jessica Allister said after the game. “It’s wonderful to come out and win game one of the postseason. It’s great to be in front of our home crowd, it was a good atmosphere. A scrappy Saint Mary’s team. So, proud of the whole team and the two women to my left [NiJaree Canady & Aly Kaneshiro] were exceptional tonight. So, happy to get the win.”
Stanford got off to a strong start in this one as Aly Kaneshiro hit a two-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the 1st inning to bring home Taryn Kern. This gave Stanford a 2-0 lead.
“Oh yeah, I mean, it always feels good, right?” Kaneshiro said of hitting her home run. “And I kinda went out there kinda just with the mentality of having a productive at-bat. Whatever it may look like. Just trying to find a way to help out the team. Worked out as good as it could have for me, but yeah, just going up there trying to put a good swing on a good pitch. Not trying to overthink anything too much. Just trying to help the team out.”
After Canady got three more batters out in the top of the 2nd inning, Stanford scored five runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning to lead 7-0. Three of those runs came from Taryn Kern, Emily Jones, and Jade Berry getting walked with the bases loaded. The other two runs came from a two-RBI single from Ava Gall.
“What Ava’s really good at, she’s just really steady,” Allister said of Gall. “And she does a good job and yeah, you see them nodding next to me, her demeanor in the dugout. She just does a really good job of not getting too high or not getting too low and just being pretty pragmatic and sticking with it and that can be really hard specifically your freshman year. And specifically offensively where you’re gonna fail and you’re gonna go through a stretch where it’s difficult. But outside of being an outstanding hitter, Ava’s superpower is that she’s able to just kind of maintain those highs and lows and stay in the middle and stay within the process and I think that’s served her well this year.”
With the Cardinal up 7-0 at the end of the 2nd inning, Allister decided to take Canady out and put in senior Regan Krause. That ended up not going as planned as Krause gave up two runs in the top of the 3rd inning before then giving up four runs in the top of the 4th inning. As a result, it would be a 7-6 lead for Stanford entering the bottom of the 4th inning.
Stanford would add one run in the bottom of the 4th inning to lead 8-6. With Aly Kaneshiro on second base and Kyra Chan on first base, Jade Berry hit a single up the middle to bring home Kaneshiro and advance Chan to third base. Caelan Koch would then line out to center field to end the bottom of the inning.
In the top of the 5th inning, Canady came back in to pitch, ending Krause’s day in the pitching circle. Canady would dominate the final three innings as nobody for the Gaels got on base. Stanford would not score any more runs the rest of the way, making it an 8-6 final score.
“It’s not too hard actually,” Canady said of coming back in to pitch. “Because I feel like our whole staff, we’re always just engaged in every pitch anyway. So, as long as you stay engaged it’s easy just to transition back in.”
For Stanford, this was a game that was closer than they would have wanted it to be. With a 7-0 lead, they were hoping to perhaps put the mercy rule into effect and win the game in the 5th inning. Instead, they ended up only winning by two runs and having to put Canady back in to finish the job.
“I think Saint Mary’s again, like scrappy team and we respect them completely,” Kaneshiro said. “And I think when they start putting runs on the board things may feel a little chaotic and that is the joy of postseason. But I think when we met with the infield in the middle of whatever inning it was, we kinda just said ok, let’s all just take a collective breath, it’s no big deal, we’re gonna get these runs back, like Regan I thought she was tough and competitive and then NiJa she stayed ready the whole game. She did an amazing job like she always does. So, not too much work for me to keep my teammates in it for sure.”
A really key moment came in the top of the 3rd inning when Taryn Kern caught a line out with two outs and runners on first and second base. Had that ball gotten past her, the Gaels may have added another run or two, which ended up being the difference in the game. It's plays like that that are so crucial to pulling out a win like this.
While this game did get a little hairy at the end for Stanford, they should still be pleased with the outcome. They got the win and go into Saturday not having to worry about being eliminated with one more loss. They can afford to lose one and still advance, which means if they win on Saturday, they’ll have to lose twice on Sunday to get eliminated.
On that note, they’ll next play on Saturday at 2:05 PM PT against Mississippi State. That will air on ESPN2 and KZSU radio.
“I know a lot,” Allister said of Mississippi State. “I spent a fair amount of time scouting them thus far and we’ll really dive into it when we get back and tomorrow morning, but they’ve got a couple really good pitchers that are very complimentary of each other and they go up, they go down, they change speeds, and they got some players that can really swing it. They got some good speed. So they are a complete ball club and it’s gonna be a good matchup. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.”
Saint Mary’s will face Cal State Fullerton in the following game at 4:35 PM PT on ESPN+. The winner of the Saint Mary’s-Cal State Fullerton game will face the loser of the Stanford-Mississippi State game on Saturday night at approximately 7:00 PM PT. The winner of the Stanford-Mississippi State game will next play on Sunday against the winner of the Saturday night game.
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