The clash between No. 1 California and No. 3 Washington may grab the softball headlines this weekend, but the No. 5 ASU softball team has a unique opportunity to take an early lead in the Pac-12 standings.
The series with No. 17 Oregon will be no cakewalk for the Sun Devils, as the Ducks (19–6, Pac-12) have played one of the more difficult schedules in the conference so far.
However, when the Sun Devils (31–3, 3–0 Pac-12) make the trek up north for their second road trip of the season, they will take on a team that will have played five games in six days.
ASU coach Clint Myers said this isn’t a factor in how the team will prepare.
“I can’t worry about what they have to do,” Myers said. “It’s one of those things that you do the best you can with the preparation for whatever you might see, and work on the things you feel are going to make the team better. It might help them. It might hurt them. I don’t know.”
The Sun Devils will have to prepare for an underwhelming team that simply hasn’t had much go its way.
Oregon lost a 2–1 decision early in the year to then-No. 10 Baylor because of an amalgamation of problems that included a single, a passed ball and an error at second base.
The team also dropped two games to rival Oregon State, which turned the tables in the series with a walk-off home run on Saturday after getting clobbered 8–2 on Friday.
The Ducks will be in an opportunistic state of mind when they face ASU, and they might have one key advantage playing in their favor.
Freshman third baseman Haley Steele, who hit her first grand slam to help the Sun Devils sweep then-No. 14 UA this past weekend, was ominous when asked how she felt about playing in the cold.
“Don’t remind me,” she said.
With expected lows in the low-40s, freshman centerfielder Elizabeth Caporuscio — who is from a community near Lake Arrowhead, Calif., and therefore used to the cold weather — agreed that playing in low temperatures isn’t ideal.
“If you get jammed, your hands are done for,” Caporuscio said.
One of the things the Sun Devils are confident about is their ability to not let the three comeback wins over their rivals cloud their focus on this upcoming opponent.
“You have got to figure that every series we are going to play is going to be that way,” Myers said. “We started out with the never quit mentality … You want to perpetuate that feeling and understanding.
“I would really like to get a lead and hold it. It’s a lot easier on the old ticker, but you do what you’ve got to do.”
Myers’s main focus is getting the defense back up after a disappointing four errors in the series last weekend.
Three of the errors came from junior second baseman Sam Parlich, who has struggled finding her groove with the glove this year.
The junior has committed 10 errors this season after posting eight and four in her first two seasons.
“You have to be able to let it go,” Myers said. “She is a very talented athlete that has to stop thinking and just let her athleticism work for her.”
Reach the reporter at jjmckelv@asu.edu
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