After her first batting practice in Tempe, Jasmine Watson didn’t look like a slumping hitter to Syracuse head coach Leigh Ross.

Ross saw the swing of a player who slugged .521 last year for the Orange, not the struggling first baseman who had struck out 48 times this season. So Ross stayed the course with her cleanup hitter, even with Syracuse facing elimination in the NCAA tournament’s regional round.

‘With hitters like (Watson), you have to be patient,’ Ross said in a phone interview. ‘You know they can break open the game at any time with one swing.’

Watson did just that in the eighth inning of Syracuse’s (42-15) elimination game against Long Beach State (29-25), smacking a solo home run to lead the Orange to a 2-1 victory in Tempe, Ariz. SU fell to Arizona State 3-1 earlier Saturday, but Watson’s homer set up a rematch with the Sun Devils (48-7) on Sunday at 6 p.m. The Orange need to beat ASU twice to advance to the Super Regionals.

Watson was swarmed by her teammates at home plate after her clutch home run, moving SU within three outs of advancing to the regional finals. The Orange closed out the 49ers in the bottom half of the inning to earn a second shot at the favored Sun Devils. 

In its first matchup with ASU, SU was doomed by a monster fourth inning by the hosts.

The Orange led 1-0 through three frames, but couldn’t keep the Sun Devils at bay. Pitcher Jenna Caira faced nine different Arizona State hitters in the inning and allowed two bases-loaded, momentum-deflating singles.

‘That’s just the way the game is sometimes,’ Ross said. ‘They got all the clutch hits when they needed them and we couldn’t get any from that point on. We only had one base runner after the fourth inning.’

Ross knows that offensive output won’t be good enough to beat Arizona State in a rematch. But even before Watson’s home run gave her team an extra-inning victory, Ross could tell that her team wasn’t ready to go home.

SU wanted another shot against the Sun Devils. And on Sunday, the Orange will get a chance to correct its mistakes against one of the nation’s best teams with a berth to the Super Regionals on the line.

‘You could tell the players wanted another game,’ Ross said. ‘We know we need to hit and minimize mistakes, and we know we can beat this team because it was so close last time.’

nctoney@syr.edu

Published on May 19, 2012 at 12:00 pm

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