5 minute read
Slugging It Out
Husky Baseball
UW’s baseball and softball teams make their marks up and down the West Coast in their final Pac-12 campaigns
BY BOB SHERWIN • FOR GO HUSKIES MAGAZINE
The University of Washington’s baseball team, despite some stellar individual achievements, has not had the team success it had hoped entering the final phase of the season as well as the 65-year-old Pac-12 Conference.
The Huskies (10-20 in the Pac-12, 19-29-1 overall) did not have much sustained performance in 2024 – just a pair of three-game win streaks. The UW concluded their regular season with a trio of duels at Cal. The Huskies finished with a 12-10 winning record at home, but were 6-18-1 on the road.
Sophomore second baseman Aiva Arquette, from Kailua, Hawaii, at one point had at least one hit in 37 of the Huskies’ 42 games, including a 17-game hitting streak. He led the Huskies in average (.352), was second in home runs (11) and second in runs batted in (34) heading into the regular season’s final seven games.
Right-handed relief pitcher Grant Cunningham, a homegrown sophomore from Seattle Prep, had a stretch in which he appeared in 11 games, covering 29.2 innings, and gave only one earned run to drop his ERA to 1.36. Overall this season, he struck out 47 batters in 41.1 innings.
Cam Clayton, a junior infielder from Lake Oswego, Ore., had a 10-game streak in which he had multiple hits in seven of them, raising his batting average by 85 points to .289. He also put together a 14-game hit streak that ended May 4.
Junior AJ Guerrero, from Fife, Wash., had a pair of home runs in back-to-back games, May 4-5, against Arizona State. He led the team in home runs (13) and RBI (42) toward the end of the season. He also has entered the school’s top 10 all-time home run list with 30 in his three seasons.
Sophomore first baseman Jeter Ybarra, from San Jose, Calif., brought his average up over .300 (.304) by May 7. He also had 34 RBI.
The five-day Pac-12 Conference tournament, which began in 1916, took place May 21 in Scottsdale, Ariz. The Huskies have won the tournament — or the North Division champion — 15 times. The last UW championship was 1998. Last season, the Huskies lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Oregon.
Visit GoHuskies.com to read about the team’s final push through the postseason and follow all the stats, results, news and on-site coverage.
Husky Softball
Washington, perennially one of the most respected softball programs in the country, finished third in the powerful Pac-12 Conference regular season and was ranked 15th in the nation at the time of this reporting. UW made their 30th consecutive appearance at the NCAA Regionals in May.
The Huskies entered post-season play needing to recapture the momentum that helped propel them to the NCAA Division I tournament 36 times, including 14 times to the Women’s College World Series — and one national title (2009).
The Huskies (13-10 in the Pac-12, 32-15 overall) closed the regular season with five losses in their final six games.
It’s like this every season for the Huskies as they have to battle mightily in conference play. The Huskies have won the Pac-12 title just four times since 1987, the last time was 2019, a co-championship with UCLA.
This season the conference was loaded again with five teams ranked in the Top 25 after NCAA Regionals: (6) UCLA, (8) Stanford, (15) Washington, (19) Arizona, and (22) Oregon.
All those West Coast softball powers gathered May 8-11 at Stanford to the final Pac-12 Conference tournament.
The Huskies finished their season ranked third in Pac-12 team batting average (.318, behind Arizona and UCLA) despite no individual in the league’s top 10 hitters. Through 47 games, junior shortstop Rylee Holtorf, junior infielder Kinsey Fiedler and sophomore utility player Alana Johnson all led the Huskies with a .336 average.
Johnson also led the team in home runs (13) and RBI (40). Grad student first base/pitcher Brooke Nelson slugged 12 home runs. Senior Lindsay Lopez led Husky pitchers with a 10-3 record while freshman Sidne Peters was 8-1. Sophomore Ruby Meylan had 139 strikeouts in 123.2 innings, both team bests.
GoHuskies.com has all the postseason softball news and coverage.
