The BYU women’s softball team finished another packed weekend and walked away with two wins and three losses in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic II.
McKenna Bull pitched against New Mexico State on Thursday, striking out 12 batters. After a scoreless tie, the game went into extra innings. In the top of the eighth, Lauren Bell got the Cougs on the scoreboard bringing Coco Tauali’I home, but The Aggies scored two runs in the bottom of the eighth to end the game.
Bull cranked up the heat with 3 more K’s against Bethune-Cookman University in her ninth career save. She now holds the BYU all-time record for career saves.
The team’s runs came from Caitlyn Larsen’s sacrifice fly that brought Madison Merrell home for the first run of the game, Libby Sugg’s double that brought Lexi Tarrow all way from first base to score the second run and a triple from Sugg that allowed for Bell to score.
Bull and Olivia Sanchez’s pitching lead to a 3-0 final.
“Our pitching and defense played well,” BYU head coach Gordon Eakin said. “We just need more timely hits. If we can get our batting up to speed, we will be playing great softball.”
Unfortunately, throwing errors on Friday against UCLA resulted in a 9-4 loss.
“I’m proud of our fight,” he said. “There were one or two close calls that went against us that changed the game that I disagreed with, but that is the nature of the game. I’m proud of our fight.”
On the last day of the tournament, the team split the doubleheader with a 7-6 win over Cal State Fullerton and a disappointing 16-6 loss to Missouri.
Bull was back on her A game with 12 strikeouts and just three walks against the Titans. This was the eighth double digit strikeout game in her career.
The team goes to Arizona March 3-5 to play in the Wildcat Invitational in Tucson.
