Stanford softball (22-20) suffered a midweek defeat on Wednesday night, losing 6-0 to Pacific (13-25) in Boyd & Jill Smith Family Stadium.
It was a well-rounded defeat except for the pitching, as starter junior pitcher Carolyn Lee had a solid performance, but the offense managed only one hit through the entire game.
Lee finished with six innings pitched, two earned runs and delivered eight strikeouts. She kept the game manageable, to a 3-0 lead, but the bats could not find a clean hit outside of sophomore left fielder Hannah Howell in the bottom of the fifth.
Sophomore pitcher Nikki Bauer relieved Lee to end the game and she was let down by the defense and fielding. She gave up zero earned runs, but three runs scored due to errors from senior shortstop Victoria Molina and herself.
The Tigers’ starter Kenya Lindstrom overwhelmed the Cardinal batters all night with a one-hit, complete-game strikeout. However, Stanford was able to walk six times, but it left eight on base.
The Cardinal are now in a four-game losing streak after defeating UCLA for the first time since 2014.
The game started shaky for Stanford as Pacific scored the first run of the game on an error by sophomore third baseman Teaghan Cowles in the top of the first.
In the bottom half of the inning, the Cardinal offense went down in order.
Lee came out strong for the second, getting two groundouts and a strikeout to finish a quick inning, and the third went similarly as she struckout a couple more batters.
The Tigers were able to tack on another run in the fourth when Lee allowed an RBI single with runners on the corners and two outs, but she got the next out to get out of the inning.
Lee went back to mowing down the Pacific batting order in the fifth inning, but she ran into trouble in her final inning in the sixth. With the bases loaded and with one out, Lee managed to strike out the next batter, but a single down the right side scored the runner from third to give the Tigers a 3-0 lead.
Lee struck out the final batter to end her appearance on the night.
The offense in the meantime had its biggest chance to score when the bases were loaded in the bottom of the fourth. Senior second baseman Lauren Wegner walked to fill up the bases with two outs. Sophomore right fielder Maya Jackson, though, hit into a fielder’s choice to end the Cardinal’s biggest threat of the game.
Bauer would take over for Lee to start the seventh, but errors killed any chance of keeping the score manageable for a last inning rally. Pacific doubled its lead to 6-0 and the Cardinal bats had one last swing in the bottom of the seventh and whiffed to close out a disappointing evening.
The Cardinal will next take the trail up north to play Oregon for a three-game series beginning on Friday at 6 p.m. PT. Every game will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Plus Live Stream.
Contact Jose Saldana at jsaldana ‘at’ stanford.edu.