The Huskies opened the season more or less on plan. They entered the year ranked, but just sneaking into the top 25. Their on-field performances looked like a team on that level, if not slightly better. While they dropped three games in their opening weekend in San Antonio, those losses were competitive and came to teams ranked 1, 1, and 9 in the country. The Dawgs also picked up a victory over #9 Nebraska. The following week, they made their W-L record a bit prettier with a dominant five-game sweep
of Fresno St, San Jose St, and Santa Clara. At 7-3 and without a bad loss, the Huskies looked no worse than the top-25 team the rankings said they were.
Those results brought them to a busy week at the Mary Nutter Classic in Cathedral City, CA. The annual event brings some of the best teams in the country to Coachella Valley. The Huskies opened the tournament against #22 South Carolina, s similarly-ranked team who looked like a good measuring stick for UW. Things went south quickly for UW. Sophia Ramuno struggled in the circle. She could not get out of the second inning and yielded 4 runs on 3 H, 3 BB, and 2 HBP, with the big damage coming on a three-run homer. Rylee Rehbein and Morgan Reimer were a bit better in relief, but each gave up two more runs on the way to an 8-1 loss.
The Huskies righted the ship over the next three games. They faced Saint Mary’s, Auburn, and BYU on Friday afternoon and Saturday and won all three games decisively. Reimer pitched five shutout innings and Alexis DeBoer hit another home run to beat Saint Mary’s 7-0. Reimer was even better against a very solid Auburn team with a complete game in which she allowed only a single earned run. Giselle Alvarez powered the offense with a three-run homer that was enough for the Dawgs to prevail 5-2. BYU has struggled as a team early this year, so it was disheartening to see Raimuno chased after three batters again. However, Rehbein held the Cougars in check, DeBoer hit her customary HR, and the Huskies pulled away to win 8-3.
Through Saturday, things were looking pretty solid for the Dawgs. The loss to South Carolina was more one-sided than UW would’ve hoped, but there is no shame in losing to a team of that quality, and UW neatly took care of business in the next three. Sunday was a different story, though. The Dawgs opened against #4 Oklahoma, one of the nation’s dominant programs in recent history. With Ryan Maddox in the circle, the Sooners opened the game double, double, single, homer. Four batters, four runs. By the end of the inning, Rehbein was back in the game and the Dawgs were down 6-0. Another DeBoer bomb was the only bright spot as the run prevention didn’t get any better. After five innings, the Sooners led 15-2 and the game was mercifully over.
The Huskies bounced back quickly in the final game of the weekend against LMU. Ally Hetzel shrugged off the OU blowout and hit a three-run homer to stake the Huskies to an early 3-0 lead. From that point, the pitching and defense struggled to hold the lead. Reimer just kept her head above water through 4.1 innings of relief. She gave up eight hits and a walk, but left with the game tied at three. Two of the runs she gave up scored directly from errors, two of three UW errors for the game. Ramuno came in for the sixth and gave up two runs to give up the lead. UW rallied to get one back in the bottom of the sixth but could not even the game back up.
In UW’s defense, LMU is no slouch. They came into the game ranked #10 in the mid-major poll and received votes for the national top 25 this week. Still, the loss to a WCC team on the heels of looking uncompetitive against Oklahoma lowers the perceived ceiling for a team that looked very promising over the first two weeks. DeBoer is a major bright spot. She already has seven HRs in 16 games and sports a .905 SLG. Hetzel, Jadyn Glab, and Ava Caroll have also been offensive bright spots, while Gaby Toney has flashed serious power. The pitching and defense still needs improvement. Reimer has an impressive 0.98 ERA, but it’s fair to question if she can sustain that with a pedestrian 33/16 K/BB ratio through 43 IP. She has also given up 11 unearned runs on top of the six earned, plus six wild pitches and four HBP- not the most fundamentally sound performance so far. Ramuno has had more electric stuff with 34 Ks in 27 IP (against only 4 BBs), but she has also been more susceptible to hard hit balls, giving up seven HRs and three doubles. Rehbein and Maddox have provided most of the rest of the innings and both have given up way to many walks and hits. Batters have slugged six HRs off of Rehbein in only 14.1 IP.
The Huskies will have another trip to California this week with a chance to get back on track. They will play San Diego St and Cal Poly twice each and CSU-Northridge once on Friday-Sunday. The Dawgs will aim to get through the weekend unscathed, but will also want to show improvement in their pitching and defense.
On the bright side, the Dawgs did remain in the top 25 (#24), and we got this all-time X thread from the immortal Coach Tarr.
