Miranda Stoddard had an epic weekend for softball, women’s hoops tourney hopes are on life support, men’s hoops is so close yet so far away, and baseball struggled in opening weekend as things heat up to start spring.
Softball bombs competition as Stoddard leads charge
The 15th ranked Arizona Wildcats softball team continued its winning ways by defeating South Alabama, Ohio and Cal-State Fullerton over the course of a four day period during the Bear Down Fiesta at Hillenbrand Stadium this past weekend. But the star of the show was Miranda Stoddard who had six home runs in the five games to help the Wildcats hold serve at home and improve to 10-1 on the season.
Stoddard, a graduate student who transferred to Arizona from Kentucky prior to last season, had two home runs in each game against South Alabama. She followed it up with dingers against each Cal State Fullerton and Ohio the following two days, wrapping up with six during the five-game set.
Prior to this outburst, Stoddard had never homered multiple times in a single game in her collegiate career. While at Kentucky, she homered 18 times in total with nine coming in her last season in Lexington. Additionally, Stoddard has contributed on the mound, sporting a 1.75 era in 16 innings this season. Stoddard leads all Wildcats with a .611 batting average and 31 total bases on the season.
Arizona will stay home for the third consecutive week of the season to host the Hillenbrand Invitational from Thursday, February 20 through Sunday, February 23. The Wildcats will face No. 1 Texas, No. 22 Stanford, UC Davis, and Colorado State in the tournament.
On Saturday when the Wildcats face No.1 Texas, it will be the first time the they have hosted the No.1 ranked team at Hillenbrand since facing Florida State in 2019. The last time they faced the No.1 ranked team in the nation was in 2022 when it faced Oklahoma at the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic in California. Arizona last faced Texas in 2022 when the Longhorns bested the Wildcats in the Women’s College World Series and eliminated them from the tournament.
The Longhorns are coming off an epic nine-inning win over No.8 Texas Tech last Friday and also dominated the Red Raiders again in an 11-0 five-inning rout. Sophomore Teagan Kavan struckout 18 batters in the Valentine’s day matchup and totaled 23 K’s during both games versus Tech while giving up one run in 13 innings of work.
Before facing the Longhorns, Arizona has a matchup with longtime former foe Stanford who is currently ranked 20th in the country and just completed its seventh straight run-rule win this past weekend. The Cardinal are 9-0, their best start to the season since beginning 13-0 in 2014.
Other noteworthy items:
Sydney Stewart hit her third home run of the season to wrap up the Bear Down Fiesta which ties her for the team lead in RBIs and she currently leads all Wildcats with 14 runs scored.
Arizona is third in the country in team batting average, sporting a .429 on the season just behind Virginia Tech and Memphis at .432.
Brooke Mannon and Aissa Silva combined for the 97th no-hitter in program history in a 15-0 win over South Alabama. The win also gave Silva her first win on the season.
Down the Mall
Men’s Basketball
Arizona held the lead for nearly 30 minutes on Saturday against No.6 Houston, but unfortunately the Cougars were able to gather control of the game in the last nine minutes by way of a 12-0 run to ultimately give the Wildcats their first loss at home in conference play this season. Despite that, Arizona is still in a good position to secure a top-four seed in the Big 12 tournament, which would give them a much needed two days of additional rest.
Arizona’s remaining road games are pretty tough and winning two of the three at a minimum is their only chance at securing a regular season Big 12 title outright, and that is if Houston somehow manages to stumble along the way with virtually a three-game lead by virtue of tiebreaker after Saturday’s loss. Road games against Baylor (Feb. 17), Iowa State (Mar. 1) and Kansas (Mar. 8) are what remain in addition to the remaining home slate against BYU, Utah and ASU respectively.
Prior to the game versus Houston, the NCAA released the initial bracket projections one month ahead of selection Sunday. Arizona was slotted as a 3-seed and despite the loss to Houston, I wouldn’t imagine too far of a drop off from that line. Beating Baylor on the road could help alleviate the anxiety of Wildcats fans in that regard.
Women’s Basketball
It was never going to be easy, but after Arizona’s loss to No.11 TCU at home Sunday, the women are virtually all but shutout of this year’s NCAA tournament. Their only hope is a miracle run in the Big 12 conference tournament and at this point the NIT is most likely the outcome.
It’s been a brutal stretch of play the last few weeks with their tournament fate on the line. The Wildcats have only one quad 1 win this season. In the last five games, games that Arizona needed to have against teams that were on the cusp or already projected in the field of 68 outside of ASU, Arizona was 1-4. The lone win was against lowly ASU. ESPN currently has Arizona as the next four out along with Colorado.
Despite the loss Sunday, one shining moment was the play of Skylar Jones who had a career-high 30 points against the Horned Frogs. It was the first 30-point game in two seasons for Arizona.
Baseball
Baseball did not get off to a great start in Arlington, Texas. The Wildcats lost 13-1 to Louisville, 16-5 to No.15 Clemson and 2-1 to Ole Miss. Not great Bob. However, there were a few bright spots. Freshman Smith Bailey threw four scoreless innings in his collegiate debut, striking out five. Junior Mason White hit his 30th and 31st career home runs, tying for 10th on the all-time list tied with Todd Trafton (1983-86) and Bill Rhinehart (2004-07).
There isn’t much time for reflection though. Arizona next faces New Mexico in their home opener on Tuesday at Hi Corbett before facing San Diego in a three-game set this weekend. After a matchup at Rice, Arizona will have a chance for redemption as it faces what equates to an SEC challenge at the Astros Foundation College Classic. Matchups with No. 1 Texas A&M, No. 18 Mississippi State and No. 4 Tennessee, will give Arizona more than it’s fair share of opportunity to collect quality wins.
Track and Field
Sophomore Tyler Michelini came away with his second individual event win of the season with a throw of 62-11.5 (19.19m) in the shot put at the Tyson Invitational in Arkansas. Zach Extine was the only other Wildcat to secure a first place finish, doing so in the men’s 60m hurdles. Extine ran a 7.67, tied for his personal best, narrowly winning by just .002 seconds.
Potpourri
Miranda Stoddard and Tyler Michelini were selected as the “Top Cats” of the week for their outstanding performances over the weekend.
Former Arizona Wildcat Channing Frye had praise, thanking NBA slam dunk winner Mac McClung for wearing his jersey and honoring him. Though we doubt this was Mac’s motivation.
Football standouts Tetairoa McMillan, Jonah Savaiinaea and Tyler Loop will all be participating in the NFL combine February 27th thru March 2nd. TMac is slated to be an early 1st round pick, currently projected to go No.8 overall to the Carolina Panthers according to Pro Football Focus and is rated as the 3rd best player overall. Savaiinaea is rated 73rd, 12th among eligible tackles and Loop is not rated though one of the better kickers in the country who projects very well to the NFL due to his leg strength.
The week ahead
Men’s Basketball: Monday, Feb.17, 8pm at Baylor (ESPN), Saturday Feb. 22, 8pm vs BYU (ESPN)
Women’s Basketball: Wednesday, Feb.19, 6pm vs BYU (ESPN+), Saturday, Feb. 22, 6pm at Houston (ESPN+)
Baseball: Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2pm vs New Mexico (ESPN+), Fri/Sat/Sun, Feb. 21-23 vs San Diego (ESPN+)
Softball: Feb. 20-23, Hillenbrand Invitational vs No. 20 Stanford, UC Davis, Colorado State, No.1 Texas
Track and Field: Friday, Feb. 19 at NAU Tune-Up (Flagstaff, AZ)
Men’s Tennis: Friday, Feb. 21 vs. No.9 San Diego
