Although another loss was added to Colorado State’s softball record, the Rams had their best offensive game to date this season, bolstering 21 hits in an effort to beat UNLV.
After a fresh loss against CSU Friday, UNLV came back stronger, also having its best offensive game of the season thus far. The Rams fell to the Rebels 20-19 in a back-and-forth game Saturday.
“I can’t remember being in a crazy game like that,” coach Jen Fisher said.
The game between the Mountain West conference rivals began with a slow start — neither team mustering up a run until the second inning — as both teams needed to warm up. That would be the only scoreless inning of the game for both teams as each contributed to one of the best offensive games for the MW. CSU and UNLV had a combined 38 hits, where pitching and defense came second to great offense.
CSU was led by senior Carolina Buffaloe. Similarly to the Rams, Buffaloe had her best game of the season at the plate as she went 3-of-5 with seven runs batted in. Buffaloe did everything she could to help CSU advance past the formidable offense of UNLV by blasting a grand slam to right center field in the bottom of the fifth.
The Rams proceeded to score a total of 10 runs that inning.
Buffaloe said she had, “all the feels” when she hit her grand slam to give the Rams the lead in the bottom of the fifth.
Lead hitter and freshman Autumn Rutherford, also contributed at the plate, going 3-of-6 with one RBI and two doubles.
“I was just telling myself to see it,” Rutherford said. “A lot of the time we will hunt pitches, either up or down or whatever it is. I was really just telling myself to see the ball there and lay off if it is low; think about where she’s been throwing it and just make hard contact.”
The Rams’ offense was a highlight, but CSU will have some work to do on defense if it wants to see itself in the win column Sunday when the Rams end the three game series against UNLV.
UNLV capitalized in the game by going on long runs on the offensive side of the ball. Seven runs in the second inning, five runs in the fourth, three runs each in the fifth and sixth and then a two-run homerun in the bottom of the seventh is truly what propelled the Rebels to victory. CSU also committed three errors and left nine runners on base.
“We could have won that but we let it slip away,” Fisher said. “We just want to tighten things up a little bit on defense and hit our lanes just a little bit better on the pitching side.”
Overall, Fisher believes the Rams should be proud of the way they played today.
“I don’t think we should feel any different than we did yesterday,” Fisher said, referring to win the Rams achieved in Friday’s game.
“We put up a lot of runs, and when we were down seven, I knew we could score seven,” said Fisher.
CSU and UNLV end their series Sunday where the Rams look to win the series 2-1 against the Rebels.
Reach Brandon Vetromila at sports@collegian.com or on X @CSUCollegian.
