ASU softball shows power in win over Oregon State

By foxsports
Updated Mar. 5, 2020 1:53 a.m. ET

TEMPE -- The No. 21 Arizona State softball team hit four homers en route to a 9-5 victory over Oregon State on Saturday as the team celebrated its annual Pink Game at Farrington Stadium.

Haley Steele, Chelsea Gonzales and Bethany Kemp all hit two-run shots, while Amber Freeman had a solo shot to give ASU seven home runs in the series. Sierra Rodriguez went 3-for-3 with a walk, as well.

Dale Ryndak (13-7) earned the victory, allowing four runs on nine hits with three strikeouts. Breanna Macha picked up her fifth save of the season, pitching 1 2/3 innings of relief with no earned runs and a strikeout.

The Devils (28-16, 6-7 Pac-12) did an exceptional job of responding to the Beavers (24-18, 5-12 Pac-12), taking whatever run total OSU scored in the top half of the inning and doubling it in each of the three innings in which OSU scored.

ASU scored two runs in the second and third innings, and four in the sixth.

The victory ending a four-game losing streak for the Sun Devils, their longest since losing six straight during the 2009 season.

ASU handed OSU's Rainey Dyreson (4-1) her first loss of the season, as she gave up five runs on nine hits in 4 1/3 innings. Taylor Cotton entered in relief in the fifth, giving up two, two-run home runs in the sixth that would prove to be the difference in the game.

The Beavers struck first in the top of the second off the bat of CJ Chirichigno, who launched a bomb over the scoreboard in left field. ASU designated hitter Katee Aguirre tied the game in the bottom of the inning on a bases-loaded chopper over the third baseman. Two batters later, Sierra Rodriguez's single to left made the score 2-1.

The Beavers knotted things again in the top of the third on a McKenna Arriola double.

Again, the Devils had an answer in the bottom of the inning as Steele hit a two-run shot, her 11th homer of the season.

Freeman unloaded on the first pitch she saw in the bottom of the fifth, laying back on an off-speed pitch from Rainey and returning it over the scoreboard in left for a 5-2 ASU advantage.

Chirichigno brought OSU back within one on a line-drive, two-run shot to right center in the top of the sixth.

Macha would get ASU out of the inning and for the third time in the contest, the Sun Devils answered an OSU run-scoring inning with one of their own – this time on the heels of Gonzales' 10th home run of the season.

Gonzales' two-run shot to dead center in the bottom of the sixth was followed two batters later by Kemp, who kept pace with Freeman by jacking her 13th home run of the season – also a two-run shot to center.