Kentucky softball’s 3-0 after its second walk-off win in three games
Fighting to survive another inning, N.C. State manufactured the matchup it wanted against the University of Kentucky softball team on Saturday. The Wildcats’ senior pitcher made them pay.
Autumn Humes belted a one-out grand slam in the bottom of the eighth inning to give UK a 6-2 win over the Wolfpack at the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Lead-Off Classic in Clearwater, Fla.
“I had a mindset that there wasn’t any other option to win the game, so I had to do what I had do to win the game. That home run wasn’t planned, but it was a result of good situational hitting,” Humes said. “I think having two people walked in front of me gave me a little motivation to do what I needed to do to get the job done.”
The 15th-ranked Cats have started the season 3-0, the first time they have done so since 2014.
Saturday was a storybook outing for Humes, who also pitched a complete game to pick up her first win of the season. Humes allowed eight hits, one earned run and struck out four over eight innings.
“I knew it was going to be an offensive battle and I needed to come with my best stuff to keep them off balance,” Humes said. “I think the defense did a great job of making great plays and routine plays to keep us in the game.”
With the game tied 2-2 in the top of the seventh, Humes worked around a Wolfpack lead-off single.
In the bottom of the eighth, N.C. State intentionally walked Alex Martens and Lauren Johnson to get to Humes. She blasted the first pitch she saw over the left field fence to give the Wildcats their second walk-off win in less than 24 hours. In the second game of Friday’s doubleheader, freshman Rylea Smith’s single in the bottom of the seventh gave the Cats a 2-1 win over Texas State.
Against the Wolfpack on Saturday, Kayla Kowalik led off the game with a single to center field then scored on a double by Martens to give the Cats a 1-0 lead. N.C. State tied it 1-1 thanks to a Kentucky defensive error in the top of the second, then Kentucky reclaimed the lead in the bottom half on Smith’s two-out RBI single. The Wildcats managed just one hit over the following five innings while N.C. State tied the game in the sixth thanks to a lead-off triple followed by a single.
The Cats were to face the U.S. National Team in an exhibition at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. They’ll finish off a stretch of five games in three days on Sunday when they take on No. 7 Minnesota, which defeated N.C. State 13-7 on Friday.
Sunday
Kentucky vs. Minnesota
11 a.m. in NFCA Lead-Off Classic at Clearwater, Fla.
This story was originally published February 8, 2020 at 1:24 PM.
