NCAA softball: Stanford, Cal win openers, Santa Clara facing elimination

The Cal Bears and Stanford Cardinal softball teams took different paths to first-round NCAA Tournament victories, but both Bay Area teams moved closer to a College World Series berth on Friday.

Santa Clara’s Hope Alley homered three batters into the Broncos‘ first-ever NCAA tournament game and the Broncos didn’t fold after yielding a four-run second inning, but couldn’t complete the comeback against 13th-ranked Arizona and are one loss from elimination in the 64-team tournament.

No. 16 ranked Stanford rolled past Binghamton of New York 9-2 in Eugene, Oregon, scoring in each of the first four innings of the rout. In Norman, Oklahoma, Annabel Teperson allowed two hits in Cal’s 1-0 win over Omaha, and in Tucson, Arizona, SCU fought back to cut a five-run deficit to one in the fourth inning, but was doomed by two more big innings in a 13-5, five-inning loss to the 13th-ranked Wildcats.

Stanford (41-11) entered the tournament with the second-highest team batting average in the nation (.357) and averaged 8.1 runs during the regular season and came out swinging against the Bearcats (36-13) quickly building a seven-run lead. Caelen Koch had four of the Cardinal’s ten hits and drove in two runs. Emily Jones also drove in two runs, and eight different Stanford players scored at least once against the Bearcats, who are in the tournament for the second time in school history.

The Cardinal, which is looking to reach the CWS for the third straight year, faces No. 16 Oregon or Weber State on Saturday at 1 p.m.

Cal (36-19) broke a scoreless tie against the Mavericks (39-12) in the bottom of the fourth when Elon Butler led off with a double and then scored from second on Tianna Bell’s two-out single. Cal had just two hits, but produced its fourth shutout in the past six games. Omaha had runners on second and third in the second, and then again in the fifth (after two Cal fielding errors), but Teperson worked out of the jams with a strikeout and a groundout, respectively.  The senior retired seven of the final eight batters she faced to record her third complete-game shutout.

The Bears, who are also making their third-straight tournament appearance but haven’t reached the CWS since 2012, face four-time defending national champion and No. 2 tournament seed Oklahoma at 11 a.m on Saturday.

The Broncos (32-21) play the loser of Friday’s late Mississippi/Grand Canyon game at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. With a win, they’d play another potential elimination game at 6 p.m.

Alley, who transferred from Cal as a grad student, hit her fifth homer of the season with two out in the bottom of the first. The former Foothill High (Pleasanton) star has reached base in 28 straight games. Arizona (46-11) tied the score in the bottom of the first, erupted for four runs in the second and made it 6-1 after three innings. SCU got back into the game with a four-run rally of its own in the fourth, with Robynn Balmediano and Lauren Bryson producing consecutive back-to-back two-run hits . But Arizona, which had 10 hits and benefitted from seven walks and two SCU fielding errors, pulled away for good with a three-run fourth and a four-run fifth.