After struggling against the Oregon Ducks last weekend, the Stanford softball team faces a tall task as it heads to the desert to take on the Arizona State Sun Devils in the last Pac-10 series of the year.
No. 11 Stanford (37-13, 9-9 Pac-10) squares off against the No. 1 Sun Devils (48-5, 15-3 Pac-10) in a three game series starting Friday night, and the Cardinal will need a better offensive performance than last weekend if it wants to overtake the Devils this weekend.
Stanford scored just eight runs all weekend and dropped two of three to the Ducks, despite another ridiculous weekend at the plate from junior Ashley Hansen, who went 9-for-15 with two doubles and four RBI.
The Cardinal’s only win of the weekend was a 4-1 victory on Friday night behind a three-hit, one-run, 14-strikeout pitching performance from sophomore Teagan Gerhart, who extended her record to 21-8 on the season with the win.
The Sun Devils come in to the weekend scorching hot, having won their last 11 games, all against Pac-10 opponents. The Devils are led offensively by Katelyn Boyd and Lacy Goodman, who both have batting averages over .400.
As a team, Arizona State has clobbered 67 home runs–an average of 1.26 long balls per game. In contrast, the Cardinal has hit just 41 home runs all season and no Stanford player has double-digit home runs so far this year. Arizona State has three players with 10 or more bombs.
Stanford and Arizona State start a three-game series Friday night in Tempe at 7 p.m.