Sun Devils sweep through tourney

 by Steven Falkenhagen
 published on Monday, February 18, 2008

The ASU softball team added another piece of hardware to its trophy case on Sunday.

The Sun Devils (10-1), ranked No. 4 in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll swept their slate of six games in the Kajikawa Classic to take first place honors for a third consecutive season.

ASU relied on all facets of the game to win the tournament, although stellar pitching performances from all three of ASU's primary starting pitchers took pressure off of the Sun Devil bats.

Senior pitcher Katie Burkhart (4-1), had an outstanding weekend. She pitched gems all three days of the tournament, racking up 19 shutout innings, allowing only six hits and striking out 41 batters in the process. Burkhart pitched the first and the last games of the tournament for the Sun Devils.

"I was a little bit not as fine-tuned, but (senior catcher Kristen) Miller was keeping me mentally focused on my locations and telling me to hit my spots today," Burkhart said on Sunday.

Burkhart added that the team played well as a whole.

"We're doing a great job, but there's always room for improvement," Burkhart said. "We don't want to peak right now. It means more to peak more later on towards the end of the season, when it really counts."

ASU's most contested game was its finale, a 4-0 victory over the Texas State. The game was knotted at 0-0 for three innings before Miller opened the fourth inning up by driving out a first pitch outside fastball over the center field fence. The home run gave the Sun Devils a 1-0 lead, breaking the stalemate.

Miller capitalized on the approach that opposing junior pitcher Katie Garnett took to right-handed batters.

"She's been throwing a lot of righties [on] a first pitch outside pitch," Miller said. "So I just went up there thinking I was going to get that pitch, and it was there."

ASU later took advantage of an error by Texas State sophomore first baseman Leah Boatright in the following inning. The mistake led to ASU tagging on three more runs, two of which were plated by a two-run home run by freshman third baseman Krista Donnenwirth.

Burkhart pitched a complete game two-hitter to preserve the win for the Sun Devils.

ASU coach Clint Myers was pleased with the team's overall effort during the weekend.

"We've got 40 games of preseason to get better," Myers said.

"The Pac-10 is so demanding [of a] conference [that] you have to capitalize on any mistake that's given to you because on any given day the pitching [in the Pac-10] is so good.

"It was a good day [Sunday]. We got to play every single person on the team except Megan [Elliott] today. We didn't play her because we needed a pitcher, because if something happened to Katie [Burkhart], she could go in."

ASU puts its seven-game winning streak on the line today against Southern Utah at Farrington Stadium.

Reach the reporter at: steven.falkenhagen@asu.edu.