After shutting out Pacific (28-22, 12-6 Big West) in early March, No. 15 Stanford softball (29-16, 6-9 Pac-12) fell to Pacific 9-6 in Wednesday night’s midweek road game.
Senior Teagan Gerhart was uncharacteristically shaky on the mound, giving up five earned runs on eight hits in 3.2 innings of work. Her freshman counterpart, Kelsey Stevens, didn’t fare much better when she came in the fourth inning for relief duty, allowing four earned runs in picking up her eighth loss of the year.
Pacific’s bats were alive right from the beginning, with third baseman Taylor Petty’s two-run home run off Gerhart giving the Tigers an early 2-0 lead. The Cardinal struck back in the top of the third when sophomore leftfielder Leah White plated three runs with a monster shot to right field.
But the Tigers knotted the score at three in the next frame before putting the game away by scoring three runs each in the fifth and sixth innings.
It looked as if Stanford would mount a rally in the top of the sixth when sophomore Erin Ashby hit a three-run homer, but the Cardinal couldn’t carry its momentum into the final inning to complete the comeback.
Stanford jumps back into Pac-12 play this weekend, hosting Utah for a three-game series.