More Photos » Florida State vs Hawaii
With the largest crowd of the year packed into the stands — and beyond — the University of Hawaii softball team passed its biggest test of the season to date.
The 22nd-ranked Rainbow Wahine treated the crowd to a doubleheader sweep on the second day of the Bank of Hawaii Invitational, closing the day with a 2-1 victory over No. 20 Florida State on Saturday.
After UH left-hander Kaia Parnaby shut down UC Santa Barbara in a 5-0 victory, Rainbow Wahine senior Stephanie Ricketts struck out nine and gave up two hits against Florida State in raising her record to 9-0 and becoming the program’s all-time wins leader.
For Ricketts, her school-record 83rd career victory was secondary to pulling out a win in UH’s first meeting with a nationally ranked team this season.
"I totally forgot about this record," said Ricketts, who tied the mark Friday night. "I was just (thinking) this is the biggest team we’ve played, a team ranked above us. The whole time that’s what I was thinking about more than the record."
UH will take a 15-0 mark into today’s bracket portion of the tournament. Florida State (16-2) plays UCSB (7-13) at 10 a.m. and UH faces Radford (5-5) at noon. The losers play in the third-place game at 2 p.m. The winners meet for the championship at 4 p.m.
The Wahine remained the lone unbeaten team in the field while playing before a standing-room-only crowd at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium (capacity 1,200) as fans filed in after the UH baseball team’s win over Wichita State across the street.
"We saw them coming in after the baseball game, there were people watching from the parking structure, and we wanted to play for them," Ricketts said. "We wanted to show them what we’ve been doing over here and hopefully they’ll come back."
The anticipated showdown of unbeatens didn’t materialize as Florida State suffered its first loss of the season when Radford pulled out a 3-2 win just prior to the UH-UCSB game.
After UH hit three home runs and Parnaby (6-0) finished off a nine-strikeout performance against the Gauchos, the Wahine were stymied by Florida State right-hander Lacey Waldrop until ninth-place hitter Dara Pagaduan came up in the bottom of the third.
Pagaduan, who hit a two-run home run against UCSB, heeded a suggestion from UH head coach Bob Coolen to counter Waldrop’s assortment of off-speed pitches and launched her second homer of the day to center field to give the Wahine the lead.
"Because she was throwing so many changeups, he had us go into our slap (hitting) mode," Pagaduan said. "So I think that really helped in getting the timing down. I guess I just saw it and I threw my hands at it and just happened to hit it hard."
Alex Aguirre made the same adjustment and pounded a bouncing two-out single down the right-field line to score Jazmine Zamora from first base and extend UH’s lead to 2-0 in the fourth inning.
"It’s something we work on all fall; it’s something we talk about all the time," Coolen said. "You get into the good rhythm and if you do everything fundamentally sound in the hitting stroke, you’re going to be able to hit the ball just as hard slapping as you do swinging."
Ricketts was perfect through 41/3 innings before Mililani graduate Courtney Senas — whose cheering section accounted for a sizable portion of the crowd — looped a hit into center field and raced to second. Senas then scored on Erika Leonard’s single to left-center.
But Ricketts stranded an FSU runner in the sixth and retired the Seminoles in order in the seventh to close out the win.
At Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium
UCSB (7-13) |
000 |
000 |
0 |
— |
0 |
3 |
0 |
Hawaii (14-0) |
130 |
010 |
x |
— |
5 |
8 |
0 |
Andriana Collins, Shelby Wisdom (2), Collins (2) and Lainey DePompa. Kaia Parnaby and Kayla Wartner. W–Parnaby. L–Collins.
Leading hitters–Hawaii: Kelly Majam, HR, 2 runs; Sarah Robinson, 2-3, HR; Dara Pagaduan, HR, 2 RBIs.
Florida ST. (16-2) |
000 |
010 |
0 |
— |
1 |
2 |
1 |
Hawaii (15-0) |
001 |
100 |
x |
— |
2 |
3 |
0 |
Lacey Waldrop and Erika Leonard. Stephanie Ricketts and Kayla Wartner. W–Ricketts. L–Waldrop.
Leading hitters–FSU: Courtney Senas, 2B; Leonard, RBI. Hawaii: Alex Aguirre, RBI; Dara Pagaduan, HR.
Saturday’s early scores
UC Santa Barbara 2, Radford 1
Radford 3, Florida State 2