March 29, 2008
PALO ALTO, Calif. - Three Sun Devils hit home runs Saturday afternoon as the No. 1 ASU Softball team ran a 6-0 win past the No. 5 Stanford Cardinal in Palo Alto at Smith Stadium. The win puts ASU at 38-2 overall and 2-0 in Pac-10 play as Stanford falls to 32-4 overall and 0-2 in conference play.
Krista Donnenwirth led the strike for the Sun Devils as she cracked a solo shot off a 2-2 pitch deep to the let field scoreboard to give ASU the 1-0 advantage in the second inning. ASU pushed one across in the third as well as Rhiannon Baca singled to right center and was brought around on a sac bunt and single from Mindy Cowles up the middle.
The Devils came at it again in the fifth as a single to shallow right center put Krista Donnenwirth on first as Katie Crabb dug in to hit her fourth home run of the second and second two-run shot of the weekend taking a 1-1 pitch deep to left center and give ASU the 4-0 cushion.
Kristen Miller put the nail in the coffin in the sixth as a fielder's choice put Mindy Cowles on first before Miller crushed her 10th home run of the season for two more runs while becoming the first Sun Devil to hit double digit home runs this season.
Katie Burkhart was lights out in the outing allowing only three hits and striking out seven in the complete-game shutout as she collected her 19th win of the season and led the Sun Devils to their 38th of the season.
Thus far on the weekend, the Sun Devil offense has lit up the scoreboard for 10 runs with 20 hits, 12 for extra bases against ranked opponents. Overall the Sun Devils are hitting .328 and slugging .705 as a team.
The Sun Devils will wrap their Pac-10 opening weekend tomorrow as they face the Stanford Cardinal one last time in Palo Alto at Smith Family Stadium at noon PT.