The Arizona softball season and the Candrea Classic started Thursday afternoon going into the evening as a doubleheader against Southern Utah with the Wildcats winning both games by run-rule 8-0 scores at Hillenbrand Stadium.
An interesting twist was former Arizona pitching ace Taylor McQuillin in the other dugout as Southern Utah’s associate head coach.
“I got a little nostalgic coming here when we walked in,” said McQuillin, a 2019 NFCA First Team All-American, three-time NFCA All-Region selection, and four-time All-Pac-12 honoree. “Being able to be home and experience it this way … as a coach now on the field instead of the athlete on the field, kind of gave me the emotions I wasn’t really expecting.”
Arizona started the afternoon winning the first game in only five innings.
Both sides of the ball were hot to start the season.
Jalen Adams, an All Big Ten transfer from Iowa, threw a no-hitter in her debut that included four strikeouts with the only blemish being hitting a batter with a pitch in the top of the third inning.
From the batter’s box, Sereniti Trice, formerly of Iowa State, went 3 for 3, coming a home run shy from hitting for the cycle.
Jenna Sniffen did hit the ball out of the park in the fourth inning.
“She’s been chomping at the bit for this moment,” Arizona coach Caitlin Lowe said about Adams’ impressive performance. “I think she hit another level in practice this week, ready for the ball.”
“Really just throwing into our defense; our defense does a really good job of shifting to our pitches,” Adams said. “The goal obviously is to always get everyone out in as few pitches as possible, so I think that was more of my main focus.”
From the first inning, the Wildcats were able to jump on the Thunderbirds due to an error that led to Trice opening the scoring for the season.
Addison Duke, a transfer from Ole Miss, kept the ball rolling in the second inning, stealing second base before being brought in by Regan Shockey.
Trice started the third inning with a triple, scoring shortly after thanks to Grace Jenkins‘ sacrifice fly.
While the scoring was like a faucet dripping consistently, the flood gates opened in the fourth.
Starting with the ball that was rocketed out of the field by Sniffen, followed by an eventual wild pitch that brought in Tayler Biehl from third. A couple batters later, Trice hit a double that brought in Duke before the scoring ended with a wild pitch that got Shockey home.
Three of the scores were earned on Sabino High School graduate Avery Nielson, who was making her collegiate debut.
Arizona was able to finish the game in part due to Sniffen hitting a double that set up pinch runner Molli Daley, a Salpointe grad, to be brought in by Biehl.
In the second game, knockout punches in back-to-back innings ended with Arizona winning in the sixth.
Starting on the mound for the second game was sophomore righty Sarah Wright for Arizona, and another Sabino grad Riley Nielson, Avery’s sister, for the Thunderbirds.
Wright and the defense did well, but the offense struggled in the early innings not getting points on the board until the fifth inning.
“The pitch calling and the pitchers were adjusting to our swing, I think we got a little too big,” Trice said about what was challenging in the early parts of the second game. “We came together, like, ‘Let’s just play our game. Let’s slow it down.’ That’s what happened.”
Trice picked up where she had left off in the first game hitting a double that brought in Duke and Shockey from second and third.
After that, Trice kept her great day going, scoring from second while tagging up on a flyout at the wall by Syndey Stewart. The inning ended with the Wildcats leading 3-0.
Southern Utah got a lead off hit in the top of the sixth but couldn’t convert it into points.
Arizona sealed the win in the bottom of the sixth set up by Biehl being walked and Kez Lucas reaching first before bringing in former Tucson High and Pima College standout Camila Zepeda as a pinch runner.
Duke then hit a double, bringing in Biehl. Shockey followed hitting a single that would get Zepeda home.
Trice singled, loading the bases with the score 5-0, setting the table for Stewart, who flied out again bringing in Duke.
Kiki Escobar brought an end to the game hitting a single, with the speedy Shockey and Trice on the bases.
“I was just looking for a pitch that was in my zone,” Escobar said about the walk-off hit. “I got a pitch I wanted and just was able to deliver.”
Arizona will play against No. 3 Oklahoma in a three-game series at Hillenbrand that starts Friday at 4 p.m. Saturday’s game is at 5 p.m. and Sunday’s is at 11 a.m. The series will be televised by ESPN+.
“It’s going to be a World Series-type atmosphere here for a three-game series,” Lowe said. “It’s going to feel like the postseason already in February and that’s what we need. We need to be challenged. We need to see where we’re at, and I want to see ‘em go for it.”
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