Friday night's UA-Creighton game was over nearly as soon as it began. The Wildcats opened a 13-0 lead after three innings and never looked back on their way to demolishing Creighton 15-1 in five innings in the Wildcat Invitational.
In the first inning, two runners reached base on walks to bring Callista Balko to the plate. And in what seemed to be the theme for the day, Balko added to her home run total when she hit her third in two games to make it 5-0.
Balko said simply her day was a matter of being able to see the pitches well.
"Usually it takes me a while to start seeing the ball well, but sometimes you just know when you have it, and other times you don't, so you just have to work around it each game," she said.
Brittany Lastrapes would get up later in the inning and knock in two more runs to give Arizona a 7-0 lead after the first inning.
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In the third inning, she did a bit of the same when she doubled in Sarah Akamine and Adrienne Acton to give the Wildcats a 9-0 lead. K'Lee Arredondo then hit a three-run shot to make it 12-0.
Arizona interim head coach Larry Ray said the power surge does not come as a surprise.
"I knew we were capable of hitting more home runs than last year's team, but obviously today was just an exceptionally good day for the hitters," he said. "The ball seemed to be just flying out."
Lindsey Sisk allowed one hit and struck out five in her complete-game effort.
"I told the team that it makes life easy, not only on the pitching staff, but on the coaching staff," Ray said of the offensive output.
Earlier in the day, Arizona dominated La Salle 18-2, mainly because of a 10-run seventh inning.
After building an 8-1 lead through four innings, Arizona had a mini-home run derby in the seventh. Corinna Gonzalez had a pinch-hit three-run homer for her first hit of the season. Balko followed with the second homer of the inning as Arizona totaled six long balls in the game.
Up next
Wildcat Invitational
• Today: vs. La Salle, 4 p.m.; vs. Creighton, 6 p.m.
