Written Story by Alex Roth

The 14th ranked Oregon Ducks Softball team suffered a tough 9-4 home loss to the 13th ranked Arizona State Sun Devils Saturday night at Jane Saunders Stadium after leading 4-1 through the first five innings. Stevie Hansen pitched lights out early on for Oregon, not allowing a hit through the first three innings. In those early innings, the Oregon offense was able to score 4 runs off two RBI hits, a sacrifice fly, and an Arizona State error. Paige Sinicki and Jasmine Williams provided the RBI hits early on, allowing for Oregon to capitalize on runners in scoring position in the 2nd inning.
Stevie Hansen would surrender her first hit of the day to Jazmine Hill on a solo home run in the top of the 5th, which only cut the Ducks lead to 4-1 at that point. Following a scoreless fifth for both teams, Arizona State piled on the runs in the 6th inning. Stevie Hansen gave up a two-run bomb to Alynah Torres to start the inning, before two poor Oregon defensive plays including a dropped out by Ariel Carlson allowed for Arizona State to get two more runners on base. Hansen would then walk Makenna Harper with the bases loaded to tie the game at 4 before Jessica Puk and Mailey McLemore would deliver RBI hits to put the Sun Devils up by 3 runs, ending Stevie Hansen’s day in the circle.
Oregon’s offense would fail to respond in the bottom of the 6th inning before Arizona State would add two more runs from a Jazmine Hill home run to take a commanding 9-4 lead in the final frame and finish off the victory.
Oregon has now lost their fifth consecutive game and clinched their second straight series loss and first series loss of the year at home. The Ducks will look to somehow get their season back on track when they close the series out tomorrow at noon. You can find that game broadcast live on 88.1 FM or follow along for live game updates on the kwvasports twitter account.

Game Leaders:

Strikeouts: Stevie Hansen 8 (Oregon)
Allison Royalty 4 (Arizona State)
Hits: Jazmine Hill 3 (Arizona State)
3 Tied, Paige Sinicki, KK Humphreys, and Terra McGowan (Oregon)
Home Runs: 2 Jazmine Hill (Arizona State)
N/A Oregon
RBI: Jasmine Hill 3 (Arizona State)
2 Tied 1 (Oregon)

Audio Story by Alex Roth:

Post Game audio:

Melyssa Lombardi:

Stevie Hansen: