College softball Clemson softballs sit on a fence during the Clemson softball Orange vs Purple scrimmage at McWhorter Stadium in Clemson Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Clemson Softball Orange Vs Purple Scrimmage

A huge Top 25 matchup happened in college softball on Sunday afternoon and it had fans and others buzzing

25th-ranked Utah pulled off a massive victory over 18th-ranked Arizona in a wild, wild finish in Tucson. The Utes fought off a 7-1 deficit to come from behind and beat the Wildcats, 13-11, taking the series in the process. The two sides were able to match the drama from a day before, as Arizona won 10-9 in nine innings on Saturday. Arizona scored nine of its 10 runs after the 7th inning to win its lone game of the series.

On Sunday, the Utes were the ones who came from behind after having their 11-game winning streak snapped. Utah stung Arizona in the top of the seventh inning, as graduate student utility Ellessa Bonstrom hit a go-ahead two-run home run to put the Utes up for good, capping an 8-0 run.

Sophie Jacquez got the rally started, but the junior outfielder played a much bigger role in Sunday’s win. In the top of the fifth inning, she punched an RBI single into left-center field with runners on the corners to cut the lead to five runs.

The Utes didn’t stop there, as Abby Dayton was partly responsible for those eight unanswered runs. Later in the top of the fifth inning, the freshman outfielder delivered her third and fourth RBIs of the game, putting the game within reach.

Another RBI single off the bat of Jacquez knotted the game at 11 in the top of the sixth inning.

 

Utah (21-5, 5-1 Pac-12) is now atop the conference standings. And, for the first time since 2018, the Utes rank in the top 20 of D1 Softball’s latest rankings, which has Utah as the No. 19 team in the country.

The college softball world buzzed about this epic clash.

[Utah Softball, D1 Softball]

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.