Wisconsin split its opening-day games, beating No. 21 California 4-2 and losing to BYU 5-4 in the Kajikawa Classic in Tempe, Ariz. Friday afternoon. The Badgers (1-1 overall) topped California (0-1 overall) in the first game on a walk-off home run by sophomore infielder Kelsey Jenkins.
Cal jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning, but a sixth-inning RBI single from junior center fielder Chloe Miller cut the lead in half. Wisconsin tied the game at two in the bottom of the seventh inning after a home run by freshman catcher Melanie Cross. Freshman infielder Stephanie Lombardo’s single in the bottom of the seventh set up the Jenkins walk-off.
The Badgers received solid starting pitching from junior Kristen Stevens, tossing six innings and giving up two runs while striking out four. Senior pitcher Taylor-Paige Stewart shut down Cal in the seventh inning and earned the win.
In game two, Wisconsin jumped out to a 2-0 lead after RBIs from Lombardo and senior infielder Ashley Van Zeeland. Another home run by Cross pushed the Badger lead to 3-0.
BYU (2-1 overall) came back to tie the game in the sixth inning and force extra innings. UW took the lead in the top of the eighth inning on an RBI sacrifice fly by Miller, but BYU tied the game in the bottom of the eighth and scored the winning run on an RBI bunt single in the ninth inning.
Head coach Yvette Healy was still optimistic about her team’s opening-day performance.
“We had a great first day, to come out in the sunshine and beat Cal, who is just a powerhouse PAC 12 team, our pitching was great, we got some timely hitting,” Healy told UWBadgers.com.
“I was really pleased to see the team refocus for the BYU game, BYU is so good and they're going to win their conference and they're in the [NCAA Tournament] every year so to see our pitchers come out strong once again, Taylor and Kirsten combining together was just a really nice combination. I loved everything about today, they fought, the team stood together, we had some really good defensive plays and they battled.”
Wisconsin plays Nevada and Portland State Saturday in day three of the Kajikawa Classic. First pitch for game one is set for 12:30 p.m. and game two will start at 5:30 p.m.
UWBadgers.com contributed to this report.
