After a very successful opening weekend, No. 17/21 Virginia Tech heads to Arizona for the Littlewood Classic hosted by Arizona State and Grand Canyon. The Hokies (4-0-1) will play five different opponents during the three-day event.
“It’s another good weekend of games for us,” Tech head coach Pete D’Amour told Tech Sideline. “All five of these teams could make the NCAA Tournament at the end of the year.”
Here’s the Hokies’ schedule for the weekend. Note that all times are Eastern.
Virginia Tech got off to an impressive start last week in Auburn, going undefeated and scoring 50 runs in five games while holding its opponents to 13. The offensive explosion has the Hokies ranked third nationally in average runs per game (10.0) and home runs per game (2.0).
“We were able to get the newcomers game experience,” D’Amour said. “We have a lot of depth this season throughout the roster. All of the young ladies were engaged every inning and all of them were ready when they were called upon.”
Tech’s two Friday contests will be a rematch of the 2021 NCAA Regionals that saw the Hokies knock off BYU (5-2, 11-3) and host Arizona State (8-2) to advance to the NCAA Super Regionals at UCLA. In those three games, Tech recorded 24 runs, 42 hits and eight home runs.
BYU (5-0)
BYU is now a Big 12 member after winning eight titles in 10 years in the WCC. Last season, it finished with a 35-17 record but did not receive a bid to the NCAA Tournament. Snubbed for the second consecutive year (after 16 consecutive NCAA berths), the Cougars accepted an invitation to the NIT, where they were the runner-up to Iowa.
In the powerful Big 12 where Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Texas rule, the Cougars were picked to finish seventh this year in the preseason coaches poll.
BYU opened the season in Hawaii and had a crazy weekend. After giving up eight first-inning runs to Missouri-Kansas City, the Cougars bounced back and scored the next 17 runs in that game. On top of that, they outscored their opponents 38-6 the rest of the way to register a 5-0 record in the Aloha State. They beat Missouri-Kansas City twice (17-8 in 6 innings, 3-0) and Ole Miss (7-4), Nevada (8-0) and Hawaii (3-2) once each.
BYU returns 17 players from last year’s team, including reigning WCC Player of the Year Huntyr Ava. The first baseman has a career batting average of .347 with 51 home runs. She was 6-for-15 with 3 RBI.
Senior outfielder Violet Zavodnik, who earned conference freshman of the year and player of the year honors in 2021, has a career batting average of .371 with 44 home runs. She was 7-for-15 in Hawaii and is one of five BYU players hitting over .350.
Another notable returnee is sophomore shortstop/pitcher Ailana Agbayani, who was the WCC Defensive Player of the Year last season. Agbayani was also the Cougars’ best hitter last year with a .337 average. In 17 appearances in the circle, she posted a 5-3 record with a 2.43 ERA.
Like Virginia Tech, BYU has a mixture of young and old on the pitching staff. Senior Chloe Temple (1.54 ERA last weekend) has 46 complete games in her 76 career starts and 456 career strikeouts in 475 innings. Sophomore Kaysen Korth (3.32 ERA), racked up 26 starts in 2023, provides another experienced arm. Freshman Gianna Mares provides a look from the left side.
Gordon Eakin is in his 22nd season as head coach of the Cougars. Eakin, who has a career record of 800-372 (.683) at BYU, has led the program to 16 NCAA Tournament appearances and one Super Regional (2010).
Arizona State (2-2)
Virginia Tech will face the Sun Devils in their second game on Friday. Arizona State has a rich softball history that includes two national titles (2008, 2011), 12 Women’s College World Series appearances, 10 super regionals and 33 regionals.
However, when head coach Trisha Ford left ASU for Texas A&M after a berth in the 2022 NCAA Super Regional, a number of key players entered the transfer portal, including three of the four starting pitchers (44 of the 54 starts), leaving incoming coach Megan Bartlett with an uphill battle.
As a result, the Sun Devils struggled last season, going 22-26 and missing the NCAA Tournament for only the seventh time in program history. It was just their second sub-.500 record ever.
With a strong recruiting class and some impactful transfers, Bartlett hopes to get the Sun Devils back on track. Last weekend, Arizona State hosted the Kajikawa Classic and recorded wins over St. Thomas (9-4) and Maine (9-1 in 5 innings) while losing to No. 20 Northwestern (2-0) and Boise State (6-4).
Graduate transfer Alesia Denby, a two-time All-Mountain West performer at Fresno State who was the league’s defensive player of the year in 2023, led ASU at the plate with a 6-for-12 performance that included two home runs. Sophomore speedster Yannixa Acuña went 5-for-12 and stole three bases.
Virginia Tech transfer Mackenzie Osborne picked up both of the Sun Devils’ wins last week and leads the team with 14 strikeouts in nine innings. The Richlands, Va., native led the team in innings last season with 84 but was 4-11 overall (0-8 in the Pac-12) with a 3.82 ERA.
Sophomore Kylee Magee is the other potential starter. She has started 22 career games for Arizona State and is 4-7 with a 3.72 ERA with 72 strikeouts in 84 ⅔ innings.
Cal (5-1)
On Saturday, the Hokies will move to Grand Canyon’s campus where they’ll face Cal in the first game of the day. The Golden Bears, who are coming off their first NCAA Regional appearance in five years, were picked seventh in the Pac-12 preseason poll.
Cal won five of its six games in its opening weekend. It beat McNeese State (5-2) and New Mexico (16-3) once each while it swept Chattanooga (13-6, 1-0) and split with No. 21 Louisiana (8-0 loss, 3-1 win). It did not record a hit in the loss to the Ragin’ Cajuns.
The Bears are led by two-time First Team All-Pac 12 infielder Tatum Anzaldo, who has started 133 career games and has a .352 batting average. Junior infielder Acacia Anders, who has 117 career starts and hits .310, leads the team in hitting after a 9-of-18 performance over the opening weekend that included 8 RBI. Freshman Kaylee Pond went 6-for-14 (.429) with four runs.
In the circle, Cal returns three pitchers who each won 10 games in 2023: senior Haylei Archer (10-10, 3.50 ERA), junior Anna Reimers (10-2, 2.86 ERA) and junior Annabel Teperson (10-5, 3.78 ERA). They are joined by freshman Randi Roelling, who was the No. 15 recruit in the 2023 class, per Extra Innings.
Grand Canyon (4-1)
Grand Canyon posted a 47-13 record last season and qualified for its second consecutive NCAA Tournament, where it shocked the nation and beat No. 2 seed UCLA 3-2 in the opening game. The Antelopes were eventually eliminated by Liberty, but their second consecutive NCAA bid has the Lopes thinking of bigger things.
“The goal is for Grand Canyon to always be seen as a top-25 team,” head coach Shanon Hayes said before the season. “I feel like we have the ability to step into that this year. We’ve never really had the pitching depth to push in. I was at Texas Tech for five years and had some top-20 teams, and this team is better than any of those teams lineup-wise.”
GCU returns six players that batted .321 or better last season, including graduate student Kristin Fifield, who led the nation in RBI last season (85) while hitting .346 with 21 home runs. She’s joined by All-WAC preseason selections Ramsay Lopez (Gr.) and Katelyn Dunckel (Sr.). Lopez, who hit .362 last season with 18 homers and 61 RBI after spending three years at New Mexico State, has 55 career home runs. Dunckel posted a .358 average with nine dingers.
The Lopes also landed All-American transfer Ashley Trierweiler (Gr.) from Santa Clara, who was the nation’s No. 2 hitter last season with a .486 average.
Grand Canyon’s experience also extends to the pitching circle. Junior Meghan Golden (14-3, 2.06 ERA, 117 Ks in 95 innings), a WAC Preseason Co-Pitcher of the Year, returns. The same can be said for Ariel Thompson (12-3, 2.42 ERA), another All-WAC preseason selection. The program also added graduate transfer Megan Schumacher from Missouri and freshman Alina Satcher, a highly-touted recruit.
The Lopes started the season with a 4-1 mark, recording wins over Wisconsin (5-2), Maine (10-1 in 5 innings), Weber State (6-5) and St. Thomas (12-3, 5 innings) before falling to Boise State by a 3-1 margin.
Illinois State (0-5)
Illinois State had a challenging opening weekend in a tournament in Tampa at USF, where it scored just six runs in five games.
The Redbirds dropped games to Bethume-Cookman (3-2 in 9 innings), USF (1-0 in 9 innings), Michigan (5-3), Oregon State (1-0) and No. 18 Florida (12-1 in 5 innings).
One bright spot has been the pitching of sophomore Hannah Meeks. The lefty started the season with two excellent outings, surrendering only two earned runs in 15 innings pitched.
Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour feels his team will be up to the challenge this weekend.
“Like we talked about last weekend, we need to concentrate on three things: Play catch, throw strikes and swing at strikes,” D’Amour said. “When we add all of those together, we feel like we can play against anybody.”
Here’s the tale of the tape:
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Excellent article, as always. Thanks, Chip, we appreciate the excellent research and analysis in your information articles. I expect Tech will be favored in every game, but we’ll have to stay focused throughout the weekend.
Thanks a bunch. VT will probably be favored by they need to show up as every team is capable of beating them.
Should be some good games.
Is there any TV for these games?
The Arizona State game is scheduled for their own streaming service and today the Grand Canyon game showed up as an ESPN+ broadcast.
Incredible in depth scouting report on all 5 teams. Nice work and much appreciated.
Thanks, Sarah!
WOW, an incredible article and very informative ! Thank you, Chip!!
Thanks, Tom. Having 5 different opponents this week made for a challenging article.
Great read Chip. Can’t wait for the games to begin.
Great review
Great roundup, Chip! Pretty cool that our Hokies show up as the top-ranked team!
Chip, why did Osborne transfer to ASU?
I’m not 100% sure. Lemely had come in with a bang and she pitched 139 innings in 2022 and Ozzy only pitched 14.
ASU had a real need for pitching in 2023 since 3 of their 4 pitchers had transferred so Ozzy was able to get a lot of innings there. She got 19 starts and 84 innings. She is a really good young lady and hope she does well unless she is pitching against the Hokies!