Denim Millward
Sports Editor
After a span of five games against three different opponents, the Idaho State softball team has seen its fair share of the Beehive State.
The Bengals kicked off their Utah road trip with a thrilling 9-8 victory over the Utah Valley University Wolverines on March 25.
Trailing 8-5 after five innings, the Bengals cut the deficit to 8-6 in the sixth inning when sophomore Maddy Hickman scored on a wild pitch.
After holding Utah Valley scoreless in the bottom of the sixth, the Bengals knotted up the game in the seventh on a two-RBI single by redshirt senior Terah Blackwell. Junior Vicky Galasso led off the eighth inning with a single and eventually scored the winning run on a passed ball.
The next day, the Bengals headed north to Salt Lake City to take on the University of Utah Utes. The Bengals found themselves in a big hole early and trailed 6-0 after four innings. ISU finally got on the board in the fifth inning when junior Hailey Breakwell belted a two-run home run to left field. In the sixth, freshman Kacie Burnett hit an RBI triple and was subsequently brought home via a Blackwell double to right to cut the lead to 6-4. Galasso, as she has all season, came up huge with one out in the sixth, hitting a two-run blast to left-center to knot the game up at 6.
Unfortunately, the Bengals’ rally fell just short after the University of Utah’s Bridget Castro hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the seventh inning, clinching an 8-6 victory for her team.
The Bengals were able to shake off the defeat the next day as they headed back south to Provo to face the Utes’ arch-rivals, the Brigham Young University Cougars.
In the first of three contests, the Bengals got their first-ever road win over BYU, staving off a seventh-inning rally to pick up the 6-4 victory. Up 6-4 in the bottom of the seventh, sophomore Bailey Foster found herself in a jam, facing a bases-loaded, one-out situation. Despite the pressure, Foster was able to earn the two outs necessary to seal the win and pick up her second save of the season.
The Bengals seemed poised to earn another victory over the Cougars in their next contest on March 29. Idaho State jumped out to a commanding 10-0 lead after just three innings.
Despite the dominant hitting and pitching performances to that point, BYU began to chip away at the deficit. The Cougars scored three runs in the bottom of the third, one in the fourth, three in the fifth and four in the sixth to take an 11-10 lead and eventually would hang on to win by that score.
In the second contest of the day, BYU capitalized on early miscues and eventually cruised to a 9-2 victory.
The Bengals head to Ogden on April 4 and 5 for a two-game set with Weber State before their first home game of the season, an April 8 duel with Utah State.
