St. Joseph, MO – In Hawaii Pacific University’s opening game at the NCAA Division II Softball College World Series, the Lady Sea Warriors defeated Wayne State University, 3-1. HPU now advances to the winners bracket to play the winner of Angelo State and Metro State tomorrow, May 28, at 6:30 p.m. Central Time.
Sherise Musquiz (31-3), who was named an NFCA First-Team All-American last night, dominated the Midwest Region champions. She allowed no earned runs on three hits in seven innings of work. Casey Hanes (42-7) was tagged with the loss for Wayne State, surrendering three runs on five hits.
“I thought we prepared well for Wayne State,” said HPU Coach Bryan Nakasone. “We knew they had a good pitcher with 355 strike outs and we anticipated she would have some sort of movement on her ball, especially a rise ball. She came with a change up and it caught us off balance for the first few innings. We made our adjustments after that and sat on fast balls and fortunately we got people on base and had timely hitting.”
The Sea Warriors got on the board in the third inning, plating two runs on a two-RBI base hit by Casey Sugihara (1-2, 2 RBI), then added their third run one inning later. Musquiz helped her own cause with an RBI-single after Maile Kim (1-2) doubled to start the inning.
Wayne State plated one run in the final inning, but the damage had been done. HPU improved to 47-8 overall while Wayne State fell to 53-12. Stephanie LeClair led WSU with one hit and one run.
“I think it was a good first win for us,” said Sugihara. “We traveled far and worked really hard to get here. So just knowing we could compete with the rest of the teams here proved a lot to ourselves.”
John Barry is the Sports Information/Marketing Director for Hawai’i Pacific University