Less than 24 hours removed from Danielle O’Toole throwing her first career no hitter, the No. 5 Arizona Wildcats looked to keep the high powered Huskies offense off the scoreboard again on Saturday.
The team did just that and more in a complete domination of their top-10 opponent, winning 12-0 in five innings; the most the Wildcats have scored against a top-10 team since 2010. Arizona mercy-ruled the No.6 Huskies, marking the first time since 2014 that Arizona has run-ruled a top-10 opponent.
“Today was our day, it all got started pretty well,” said Arizona head coach Mike Candrea, who is now a single win from 1,500 in his career. ”I thought Mandie [Perez] and Dejah [Mulipola] were excellent. We just had a steady attack, lot of good hits and at-bats, solid victory today.”
The Huskies threw their No.2 starter, Samantha Manti. The freshman entered Saturdays game with a clean 5-0 record but picked up her first loss against the Wildcats.
Arizona batted around in the first inning and Manti was pulled after only 35 pitches as Washington found themselves trailing 8-0. Mulipola started the rout with a double that made the score 1-0 and she would collect another RBI in her second at bat of the inning. Mo Mercado and Alyssa Palomino also smacked doubles as the middle of the lineup caused Washington problems.
In total, the Wildcats finished the first with nine hits, nearly batted around twice and completely took Washington out of the game.
On a day when every member of the team excelled, it was the freshman duo of Palomino and Mulipola that really stood out. Mulipola, who started off the rout, went 3-4 with scoring two runs and providing 2 RBIs. Palomino smacked a homer off the light pole, as she went 3-3 on the day with a team-high four RBIs.
“When your having so much fun out there it feels like whiffle ball, you’re not even playing or trying, you’re just enjoying yourself and having fun,” Mulipola said.
With all the run support a pitcher could ever need, Taylor McQuillin took the mound still facing a Washington lineup ranked third in the country in batting average (.361) coming in to the series. The sophomore seemed unfazed by the promising statistics, pitching the entire game allowing only two hits, striking out five and improving to 10-0 on the year.
“Honestly today wasn’t one of my better days but I still went out there with an eight run cushion, making sure they never got anything going,” McQuillin said.
Arizona wraps up their series with the Huskies on Sunday at 12 p.m. MST.
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