It took 18 innings, but the Blaze finally broke out the short-game offense their roster was built for in the fourth inning Monday evening.
Trailing by a run and in danger of getting swept by the Volts in the season-opening series, the Blaze took the lead for good by scoring twice in the fourth without the ball ever leaving the infield. Aubrey Leach and Baylee Klingler both reached on infield singles, sandwiched around Kayla Kowalik getting hit by a pitch. Infield grounders from Danielle Gibson Whorton and Taylor Edwards each brought in a run in the Blaze’s eventual 3-1 victory.
“That’s exactly what you want, is to keep putting pressure on,” said Head Coach Alisa Goler. “I was really proud of our at-bats.”
Extra-inning pitchers’ duel goes Volts’ way in opener
The Blaze struck quickly Saturday night in the first game in franchise history as Gibson Whorton, in her first professional at-bat since giving birth to her first child last November, gave her team the lead on a first-inning RBI double. But that was all the Blaze managed against Rachel Garcia, who allowed just four hits in a 5-1, eight-inning complete-game win.
Aleshia Ocasio worked around a lot of traffic in the early innings, with the Volts tying the game in the third on Jessi Warren’s RBI single. Rookies Emma Lemley and Brooke McCubbin both pitched well in their pro debuts before Ocasio re-entered the circle with one out in the fifth. Goler said the pitching changes were planned in advance by Associate Head Coach Kara Dill.
“We haven’t had to make a single decision in the moment. It’s already been planned ahead. I just do my job and go report the change,” Goler said. “More times than not, that will be the case throughout the season. It will be planned out.”
The Blaze had opportunities to retake the lead, squandering a pair of walks in the fourth and two more baserunners in the seventh. They were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, and the Volts made them pay in the eighth, pulling ahead on Michaela Edenfield’s RBI single and breaking the game open with McKenzie Clark’s three-run home run.
Crooked numbers hurt Blaze in Sunday’s loss
The middle game of the series was knotted at a run apiece after three innings before the Volts’ electric offense put up three straight multi-run innings, ultimately defeating the Blaze 10-3.
Hope Trautwein-Valdespino, after relieving Keilani Ricketts in the circle, had a chance to escape a bases-loaded jam in the fourth with just one run across. She hit Edenfield with a 2-2 pitch to force in another tally. Warren followed with a single to further extend the Volts’ lead.
Tiare Jennings singled home two more runs in the fifth, and Danieca Coffey’s two-run double in the sixth created even more separation.
Once again, the Blaze had no shortage of scoring opportunities, collecting 11 hits. They tied the game in the second on rookie Ana Gold’s RBI double, then rallied for two runs in the sixth on a two-run triple by Anissa Urtez. But with Urtez 60 feet away from scoring and nobody out, the Blaze were unable to draw any closer.
Center fielder Aliyah Andrews left Sunday’s game after colliding with left fielder Korbe Otis and did not play Monday, but Goler said Andrews is “good to go” and was rested as a precaution.
“We’ve got to be more productive with runners in scoring position,” Goler said. “It’s not a magic equation. You just have to execute.”
Lemley, Ricketts pitch Blaze to first win
The rookie out of Virginia Tech got stronger as Monday’s game progressed, allowing a solo homer to Jennings in the third but retiring seven straight batters after that. With the top of the Volts’ lineup coming up for the third time in the sixth, the Blaze handed the ball to Ricketts, who gave up just one hit in two scoreless innings to earn the save.
“This team has a lot of fight. We just needed to find it,” Lemley said. “We just needed to find that fighting fire in us, and we did today. We played clean; came up in big moments. We executed pitches; good pitch calls. Everything was just really clean. The third game of any series is going to be a dogfight, and we fought really hard and deserved this first win.”
Volts rookie Sam Landry, coming off a run to the Women’s College World Series semifinals with Oklahoma, retired every batter she faced through three innings before the Blaze played small ball to take the lead in the fourth. The Blaze added a big insurance run in the sixth on a two-out RBI single by Urtez.
Klingler was the Blaze’s biggest offensive star in the series, collecting six hits in 11 at-bats. After a three-hit game Sunday, she was right in the middle of the decisive rally a night later.
“Any time you get the first of anything, it’s exciting,” Goler said. “I think I speak for all of us who are involved with the Blaze, we’re just appreciative and proud, and we want to keep playing the right way and representing this new brand how we want it to be.”
Benjamin Rosenberg is the Blaze beat reporter for the AUSL this season. He has more than seven years of experience covering college, professional and high school softball, and graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 2021.
