Ninth-ranked Arizona’s 15-6 win at BYU on Friday night enabled the Wildcats to win the series with the opportunity of a sweep Saturday morning at 11.
Arizona is now 31-5 overall and 8-3 in the Big 12. The Wildcats are 9-1 since losing the first two games of their series with UCF at Hillenbrand Stadium on March 7 and 8.
In Friday’s win, every starter in the lineup had at least one hit and the No. 9 batter Tayler Biehl was 4 for 5 with an RBI.
The Wildcats produced 17 hits, six of which went for extra bases. That means they had 11 singles to go with their five walks, which helped manufacture all the runs.
Leadoff hitter Dakota Kennedy was 3 for 5 with two runs, a double and an RBI. Regan Shockey was 2 for 5 with two runs and a triple. Miranda Stoddard finished 3 for 4 with two runs and two RBIs. Sydney Stewart hit a two-run home run. Logan Cole belted a bases-clearing triple. Kaiah Altmeyer had two RBIs and Jenna Sniffen an RBI single.
Devyn Netz scored twice and recorded a walk in addition to getting the win in relief to improve to 14-3 with a 2.27 ERA.
Netz was coming off her five-inning perfect game in Thursday’s 8-0 win. She allowed two hits in three innings Friday with a walk and two strikeouts.
She closed the door with a 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the seventh.
Arizona scored at least one run in every inning but the second inning. The Wildcats’ three runs in the third and four runs in the fourth put them ahead 8-2.
Stewart’s home run off BYU starter Jada Villegas (2-2) highlighted the third inning and Stoddard’s two-run single was the big hit in the fourth.
After BYU (20-8, 4-4) cut the lead to 10-6 in the bottom of the sixth, Arizona rallied for five runs in the top of the seventh to pull away.
Cole and former Salpointe teammate Alyssa Aguilar, in the circle for BYU, faced each other in the seventh inning. Cole managed to line a three-run triple to put Arizona ahead 14-6. They were part of Salpointe’s state championship teams in 2019 and 2021.
BYU also has former Salpointe ace Gianna Mares, also a teammate of Cole’s who was part of state title teams in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
After Saturday’s game, Arizona will return to Hillenbrand Friday at 6 p.m. for the beginning of a three-game series against Oklahoma State, which figures to be a perennial rival in the Big 12 similar to what UCLA was to the Wildcats in the Pac-12.
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