BATON ROUGE – The Arizona State University softball team rallied from an early deficit in the opening game of the 2016 Baton Rouge Regional, but struggled to get the offense going in a 5-2 loss to McNeese State on Friday.
With the loss, the Sun Devils will drop to the elimination bracket of the regional and will face the loser of Friday evenings contest between LSU and LIU Brooklyn tomorrow at 1 p.m. PT. That game will be an elimination game, with the winner living to fight another game while the loser will be knocked out of the tournament.
Fa Leilua and Abby Spiel each scored runs for the Sun Devils in the third inning, capitalizing on a pair of Cowgirl errors to tie the game at 2-2. Leilua reached third after a walk and consecutive wild pitches, scoring on an error by the MSU catcher on a play at home.
Spiel would come across on Sashel Palacios' sacrifice fly two batters later to bring things even.
That would be the extent of the scoring for ASU, however, as McNeese knocked a solo homer in the fourth inning to go ahead for the remainder of the game.
Katee Aguirre doubled in the seventh inning – the 10th time in the last 12 games she's logged a hit - to break up Emily Vincent's no-hit bid but the Devils were unable to capitalize and find a rally.
Kelsey Kessler pitched the entire game for the Devils, striking out three in the loss.
Should ASU come out on top in the elimination game, it would play immediately after in a second elimination game against the loser of tomorrow's game between McNeese State and LSU/LIU Brooklyn.