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Sataraka Homers Twice, UCLA Comes Back
March 20, 2016 | Softball
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BERKELEY, Calif. – Senior Mysha Sataraka got the Bruins on the board with a fourth-inning homer and then gave them the lead in the ninth with another solo shot, as #14 UCLA came back to defeat California, 3-2, in the Pac-12 opener on Saturday at Levine-Fricke Field.
The two-homer game was the second of Sataraka's career, as both have come in Berkeley (April 26, 2014).
Redshirt junior Paige McDuffee earned her first victory of the season in her second appearance, tossing five shutout innings of relief and striking out two with two hits allowed. Sophomore Johanna Grauer started and also fanned two in four innings, giving up two runs, one walk and seven hits.
UCLA (18-8, 1-0 Pac-12) was held to just five hits, with two each from Sataraka and freshman Paige Halstead and one by sophomore Kylee Perez.
It was a scoreless duel for the first 3 1/2 innings, as Grauer tossed a 1-2-3 frame in the third before surrendering a two-run homer by Annie Aldrete in the fourth to put California (11-11, 0-1 Pac-12) on the board.
In the top of the fifth, Sataraka led off and launched the first pitch she saw high atop the bleachers in left field to cut the deficit in half.
Down to their last three outs, the Bruins rallied in the seventh. Perez laid down a perfect bunt single and Sataraka walked on four pitches. One out later, freshman Brianna Tautalafua walked to load the bases. That brought up Halstead, who hit a gapper into left-center which was tracked down on a diving catch from Krysten McCue. But it was good enough to score Perez on the sacrifice fly to even the score.
McDuffee would retire the final 11 of the game, with 1-2-3 frames in the seventh, eighth and ninth. In the top of the ninth, Sataraka once again led off and once again homered to left, this time on a 2-1 pitch, for her team-leading seventh of the season to put the Bruins up for the first time in the game.
The Bruins and the Bears continue their three-game series on Sunday at 3 p.m. The game will air live on Pac-12 Networks, Los Angeles and Bay Area, with live stats available on UCLABruins.com.
