Saturday brought game two of the Blaze’s road series at the Texas Volts. After Friday’s pitching and defense clinic ended in a 1-0 Volts walk-off extra-inning win, Saturday delivered another Volts walk-off in the bottom of the seventh from Jackie Lis to score Rylie Boone and win 4-3. Texas picked up its second consecutive win, while the Blaze dropped their fifth game in a row.
“Another great pitching performance,” Volts head coach Ricci Woodard said. “I thought Ally Carda did a great job of keeping us in the ball game, gave up no earned runs. She hung one pitch to Reese Atwood, the one person on that team you don’t want to hang the pitch to, and obviously Reese did a great job with it. But great battle by Ally to keep us in that ballgame as long as she did. And then obviously a great battle by the Volts, just to continue to push and push and push until we can finally get some runs across and win a ball game again.”
Carolina found its way on base early with a couple of two-out singles from Devyn Netz and Baylee Klingler. Ally Carda thought she had the side retired with an Alyssa Brito strikeout, but a pitch-clock violation was called. The side stayed alive, and Brito drew a walk to load the bases. However, an Ana Gold groundout left the bases loaded.
Karlyn Pickens returned to the circle after finishing game one in a relief role. Pickens needed just 11 pitches to retire the side in order.
Jenna Laird led off the top of the second inning and was given a pass to second base, as Leighann Goode threw wildly past first base. Carolina found itself with the bases loaded and no outs, after the Volts defense was hampered by errors.
Aubrey Leach then grounded into a double play, which was played perfectly by Sierra Romero and Dejah Mulipola. With an open base, the Volts decided to pitch to Reese Atwood. She made them pay with a three-run home run to left field, and the Blaze took a 3-0 lead.
Mulipola opened the bottom of the second with a double to the left-field corner, but Pickens bounced back with a strikeout of Jackie Lis en route to retiring the side. Pickens remained hot and struck out three consecutive batters after a leadoff walk in the bottom of the third. That raised her total to five.
This game turned into another pitchers’ duel. Pickens remained tough, and through five innings, she struck out eight. The Volts did put runners on in the fifth. That allowed Jalia Lassiter to score on a Danieca Coffey sacrifice fly to make it 3-1 Blaze.
Carda continued and kept the Blaze at bay. She did what Texas needed and gave the offense a chance. She retired the top of the sixth, including a Boone diving catch to rob Ana Gold.
“I know pitchers hate bloops,” Boone said. “They hate them. So, I thought to myself, ball goes in the air. I’m the center fielder. I don’t hear anything. So I’m like, is nobody gonna call it? Okay, I go. And so I just went, but I know Shorty knew that I was all in with the catch, and so thank goodness everyone went away. But I honestly was like, Carda has been throwing a freaking game and I refuse to let that happen on her behalf.”
Mulipola then led off the bottom half with a single. After that hit, Brito was removed from the game. There was speculation around her condition. After the game, Dill spoke about Brito.
“Alyssa, she was gonna hit,” Dill said after. “She was going to be fine, just moving on defense a little bit slower. So, in order for our defense to be the best that it can, we have a ton of utility players. Went out there and talked to her, and she understood that moment. If she wasn’t 100%, we have somebody else who is 100%. So that’s why we ended up taking her out, but she was still in the lineup. She was still going to hit for us.”
Texas began to put things together. Lis reached on a walk, and Jaydyn Goodwin laid down a sacrifice bunt to give the Volts two runners in scoring position with one out. That is when the Blaze went to Keilani Ricketts. Then, Rachel Garcia jumped on an 0-1 pitch for a two-RBI double to left field to tie the game at 3.
On that play, the ball bounced and hit Ocasio her in the head. That caused her removal from the game, and Valerie Cagle entered. Ricketts escaped the inning without further damage. Dill mentioned that Ocasio went to get checked out after being removed. Dill spoke on the move to Ricketts and the confidence in her pitching staff.
“Keilani is a veteran. She is a winner, too. We have every confidence in the world in our pitching staff. So, making the move to Keilani, it was a good part of the order for her to come in and get some outs for us. So, yeah, that’s why we ended up going with the move. And again, it didn’t work out in our favor, but every confidence in the world in Keilani and Karlyn.”
Valerie Cagle led off the seventh reaching via a hit by pitch, and that sparked the move to Aliyah Binford in the circle. She worked through the inning to strand two runners. The Volts defense was huge in this game. Lassiter made a leaping grab at first to record the third out.
Boone led off the bottom of the seventh with a single, and Ricketts retired the next two, including a big strikeout of Binford. The Blaze intentionally walked Mulipola to bring up Lis with two on and two outs, and Lis made them pay with the walk-off RBI single to score Boone. Lis spoke about her mindset in that moment.
“I knew Boone’s on second. I just had to get a ball into any kind of gap, and with her speed, she was gonna score. I knew I was gonna get a lot of outside, so I was just trying to stay through a ball and get it to where they weren’t, so that we could win the game.”
The Volts and Blaze return Monday night, at 7 p.m. EDT/6 p.m. CDT on ESPN2. The probable pitching matchup is set for Rachel Garcia vs. Ruby Meylan.
