Port Coquitlam’s Alia Stachoski may have hurled the pitcher’s equivalent of the cycle for the SFU Clan women’s softball team. She won a game, lost a game and saved two others over the course of a home-and-home doubleheader series against the Western Washington University Vikings on the weekend.
It was the Riverside secondary grad’s 11-strikeout one-hitter in Saturday’s series’ opening 2-0 victory in Bellingham that may have been her most dazzling accomplishment.
Stachoski struck out six of the first seven batters she faced and didn’t surrender a hit until the Vikings’ Rylie Wales tagged a one-out single to the left side of the field in the fifth inning.
By then her Clan teammates had already established a 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning after Chelsea Hotner singled then advanced to second on a fielding error that put the next SFU batter, Taylor Gillis, on first. Both eventually crossed the plate.
Stachoski, meanwhile, retired in order the last six batters she faced to earn her seventh win of the season.
She appeared destined for a well-deserved rest in the day’s second game as Clan starter Jessica Tate and WWU’s Shearyna Labasan were locked in a scoreless pitcher’s duel into the seventh inning.
SFU then got the Vikings’ pitcher with three runs, but when the home team loaded the bases,Stachoski was summoned.
She allowed one run on a sacrifice fly with one out but then forced the Vikings’ Anna Kasner to ground out to SFU shortstop Taylor Lundrigan to end the threat and record her second save of the season.
Sunday at home in Buranby for the series’ return leg, Stachoski gave up two runs on six hits and four walks in seven innings to get tagged with a 2-0 loss in the first game. She also struck out eight of the batters she faced.
In the second game, the Clan were cruising with a 4-0 lead into the sixth inning when starting pitcher Tate allowed two of the first three batters she faced to reach base.
Again Stachoski was brought in to douse the potential comeback. And while she allowed both of Tate’s baserunners to score to cut SFU’s lead to 4-2, she struck out Vikings’ freshman Kira Doan on a called third strike to end the threat.
Stachoski then retired the first two batters she faced in the top of the seventh inning before Western Washington’s Lauren Lo reached base on a single through the left side of SFU’s infield. But she was able to douse the threat by getting Labasan to fly out to centre field.
The Clan are on the road for their next six games in Turlock, Calif., at the annual Tournament of Champions hosted by Stanislaus State University.
