The Wisconsin softball team scored three first-inning runs and held off Ohio State the rest of the way, capturing a 3-1 victory at Buckeye Field Sunday.
The win marked the Badgers’ first conference victory of the season (1-3) and improved UW’s overall record to 19-16, while the Buckeyes are now 19-12 overall and 2-2 in Big Ten play.
The Badgers return to action at 5 p.m. Tuesday when they face Illinois-Chicago in their home opener at Goodman Diamond.
Katie Layne earned the win for the Badgers, improving to 9-7 on the season. She allowed six hits and two walks while striking out two in 5.1 innings. Jamee Juarez took the loss for OSU, after lasting only one-third of an inning.
After scoring just three runs in their first three conference games combined, the Badgers matched that total in the first inning alone. Sam Polito opened the bottom of the first with a bunt single, moved up to second on a sacrifice bunt and came in to score on Kris Zacher’s ringing double off the top of the fence in right. Boo Gillette made it 2-0 when she followed with a double of her own, scoring Zacher.
UW had runners at second and third with two outs when OSU third baseman Breana Pozzi misplayed a ball hit by Athena Vasquez, allowing Gillette to advance and score. That marked the end of Jamee Juarez’s day in the pitcher’s circle, as the Buckeyes brought on Chelsea Baker to pitch. Baker tossed a wild pitch with Kaitlin Reiss at the plate, but Diana Consolmagno was thrown out at home attempting to score Wisconsin’s fourth run.
Ohio State trimmed the Badgers’ lead to 3-1 with a run in the top of the second. Jennifer Johnson’s bloop single to right with two outs scored Baker from third to cut UW’s lead to two. OSU nearly got a second run on a Megan Rowlands’ double to right, but Anastasia Miller, Reiss and Gillette combined to throw out Johnson at the plate for the third out.
Wisconsin loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the fourth inning behind a pair of base hits and a hit batter, but Baker got out of trouble by recording a strikeout and a groundout.
A one-out double by Beth McAbier in the top of the sixth prompted UW head coach Karen Gallagher to replace Layne in the Badgers’ pitching circle with Sara Gonzales, UW’s pitcher in Wisconsin’s 0-2 loss in game one played earlier in the day. Gonzales got the job done, striking out Pozzi and getting Johnson to foul out to Reiss to end the inning.
Gonzales allowed a lead off walk in the seventh but retired the next three Buckeyes in order to earn her first career save. Ohio State held a slight 6-5 edge in the hit column and left eight runners on base compared to six for Wisconsin.
–compiled from staff reports