Plain leads Washington past top-seeded Oregon
OKLAHOMA CITY » On backto-back days, Washington freshman Gabbie Plain stared down the toughest of challenges with seemingly no fear.
The Australian gave up four hits and no earned runs in six innings as Washington defeated top-seeded Oregon 6-2 on Friday in the Women’s College World Series.
A day earlier, she gave up just four hits in 5.2 shutout innings against two-time defending champion Oklahoma. She was the winning pitcher against the Sooners’ Paige Parker and Oregon’s Megan Kleist, both firstteam National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-Americans.
Plain said she’s keeping it simple and trusting her defense.
“Good pitches, good locations, making them swing at stuff that they didn’t necessarily want to swing at,” she said. “Yeah, just keeping on top of it.”
Now, fifth-seeded Washington (51-8) needs one win Sunday to advance to the championship series.
Washington junior Taran Alvelo was solid in relief both games. Washington coach Heather Tarr said the Huskies know to play behind the very different personalities.
“Gabbie has that kind of chill, no worries personality,” Tarr said. “Then you’ve got Taran that is a pump-youup, fire-you-up kind of person. So you have to learn to play behind both personnel, and they have to learn to continue to regulate their hearts and be where they need to be when they need to be there.”
Oregon (53-9) won all three meetings against its Pac-12 rival during the regular season. The Ducks said things were different Friday because they didn’t play their best.
“I think they played exactly the same way,” Oregon third baseman Jenna Lilley said. “That’s what made them good, except when we played them there, we made the defensive plays or we stopped the bleeding and we hit their pitchers around, and today, we didn’t.”