Huskies beat Arizona State in softball World Series

OKLAHOMA CITY — National player of the year Danielle Lawrie swears she did do not much differently against Arizona State on Friday.

The numbers beg to differ.

Lawrie shut out Arizona State on two hits and Morgan Stuart hit a game-winning single with two outs in the eighth inning for a walkoff, 1-0 victory before a record crowd of 8,323 at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium that brought the Huskies one step closer to their first College World Series championship.

"Danielle had an 'A' game, a definite 'A' game," Huskies coach Heather Tarr said. "I thought it was only a matter of time before we would finally execute and get a run in. I was just hoping it wasn't 15 innings."

Washington (48-11) will play again at 10 a.m. Sunday, when it will have two chances for the one victory it needs to make the best-of-three championship series that begins Monday. Its opponent will be determined in elimination games today.

The Huskies played in NCAA title games in 1996 and 1999.

Washington beat Pac-10 rival ASU for the third time in four meetings this season, with Lawrie getting all the decisions.

But if there were a team this year that gave Lawrie "trouble" — a relative term, of course, when it involves a pitcher who hits cleanup and is now 39-7 with a 1.06 ERA — it was the Sun Devils.

The composite score in the three regular-season games between the two was 16-14 in favor of Washington, and Lawrie had a 4.81 ERA against the Sun Devils compared to an 0.63 ERA against everyone else. She gave up two of her 10 home runs to ASU.

This time, Lawrie retired 23 of the 25 batters she faced, giving up only a two-out double to Katie Crabb in the second inning and a single to Taylor Haro in the eighth. Lawrie struck out three.

"I think it was us putting pressure on ourselves," ASU catcher Kaylyn Castillo said. "We weren't really trusting the bats as we have done before. It's a big stage, and that's a big deal, but I think instead of looking for that hit to get us going, we wanted to put it on the board with one swing."

Lawrie retired 16 in a row before Haro singled to open the eighth, but Stuart started a double play on a sacrifice-bunt attempt to quell that threat.

"What I changed was more mentally of how I performed yesterday" in a 3-1, first-round victory over Georgia, Lawrie said. "That felt like a B-minus game, and when you are at the World Series that is just not acceptable. We only get one opportunity to be here and show what we are made of, so me being one that wants to help lead the team, I can't have performances like that.

"I just tried to hit my spots, and against Georgia I didn't."

Kimi Pohlman, who had three hits to improve her batting average to .370, doubled to left-center field with one out in the eighth off ASU freshman Hillary Bach, who gave up eight hits in 7-2/3 innings and struck out two. ASU intentionally walked Jennifer Salling before Pohlman took third on a long fly to right by Lawrie.

Stuart singled between third and shortstop, her second hit of the game.

"I was telling coach on the way over, our team is tested for this kind of stuff," said Stuart, who has three hits and has started two double plays in Washington's two World Series victories.

"Everyone knows that we have each other's back," Stuart said. "When I saw Dani move Kimi over, I just knew that it was going to happen."