HONOLULU -- First baseman Sarah Starks hit 3-for-5 with a double and her 10th home run of the season, while right-hander Kenedi Brown struck out a career-high 14 batters in a nine-inning complete game win, as UC Davis clipped Hawai'i, 5-2, in the nightcap of the Big West Conference softball doubleheader at Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium Friday night. The Aggies lost the opening game by a final of 8-2 to finish the day with a split.
UC Davis closes up its season with a 19-24 overall mark and a 13-11 league record, with Friday's Game 2 win clinching a third-place finish in the Big West Conference.
Brown allowed five hits with just one unearned run in her nightcap victory, following up the 12-strikeout shutout she fired on Thursday. That brought her league-leading strikeout total to 162. The double play combination of Isabella Leon and Sommer Kisling each went 2-for-5 in the game, while designated player Bella Pahulu hit her first collegiate triple in the fifth.
Starks' homer broke up a scoreless tie in the top of the sixth after Leon reached on a single to center. With that shot, she became the first player in UC Davis' Division I era to reach double digit in home runs. The Aggies' 2-0 lead evaporated in the bottom half of the inning when Hawai'i shortstop and team home run leader Nawai Kaupe answered with a two-run blast to nearly the same spot, tying the contest at 2-2.
Kaupe tripled off the right-field fence in the eight, but was stranded there after Brown got Maya Nakamura to ground out sharply to third baseman Libbie McMahan, freezing Kaupe. Brown then recorded her career-high 13th strikeout when Dallas Millwood swung on a pitch inside. The ball glanced off Millwood's hand for the third strike, ending the threat.
Catcher Anna Dethlefson ignited a rally in the top of the ninth when she singled to left, then moved up on a Pahulu chopper to second. McMahan laced a single to right, and the right fielder Nakamura came up firing, but the speedy Dethlefson beat the throw and the tag attempt by UH catcher Mya'Liah Bethea. Freshman right fielder Sarah Nakahara then drove in McMahan, and Leon brought in Nakahara to extend the Aggie lead to 5-2.
Brown allowed to base runners in the bottom half of the ninth, but second baseman Ka'ena Keliinoi popped up to Starks in foul territory to end the contest.
Brown's Game 2 gem held the Wahine bats in relative check compared to Friday's opener. The Aggies jumped out immediately in Friday's opener with two runs in the top of the first. Sommer Kisling and Leon hit back-to-back doubles in the first two at-bats, then Starks moved Leon to third with a sharp grounder that beat her Wahine counterpart Millwood. Marissa Jauregui then hit a grounder to UH third baseman Mama Rivera that brought Leon home.
Hawai'i got those runs back in a two-out rally during the bottom of the third. With two runners on board, Nakamura hit what otherwise appeared to be a routine grounder to Leon at short. However, the third hop jumped up on Leon, eluding the fifth-year senior and scoring Cheeks Ramos for the 'Bows first run. UH pushed across two more on a Millwood single and a passed ball in taking a 3-2 lead.
The Wahine truly broke open their lead to its final 8-2 margin in the fifth, scoring five runs on three hits, two hit batters and an Aggie error. Bethea delivered a two-run single before UC Davis reliever Sarah Reineman coaxed a pop-up and a ground out to end the inning.
Friday's doubleheader wrapped up the 2021 season for UC Davis, and the careers for graduating seniors Jauregui, Leon and catcher Katie Steffen-Brune. Leon finished with career totals of 176 hits and 113 runs, finishing sixth in school history in the latter category. Her 16 career homers puts her in a tie for eighth on the Aggies' all-time list, and tops in the program's D-I history.
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