Freshman Dakota Kennedy has 2 walk-off hits to help Wildcats complete sweep

The Wildcats know that sometimes it comes down to one clutch hit.

That’s been the slim difference as Arizona has dropped two Pac-12 series against Utah and Washington recently.

This week, the Wildcats worked on situational hitting in practice — base runners on and live pitching to try to bring them home.

Allie Skaggs said earlier in the week that “our team just needs to keep showing up.”

“The game at some point has to go in our favor, right? I mean, the law of averages. I think it’s only a matter of time until we start flipping the script,” the junior second baseman said.

She was spot on as all that extra time spent working on those specific moments paid off this weekend. No. 20 Arizona (24-12) swept the Bear Down Fiesta, winning all four games against San Diego (14-21-2) and Georgetown (8-23) over the weekend.

On Saturday, the Wildcats beat San Diego 10-0 in five innings and Georgetown 12-4 in five innings in the nightcap at Hillenbrand Stadium.

The Wildcats definitely made their hits count. They tallied 25 — 10 coming against San Diego, 15 against Georgetown.

In both, it was the “Dakota Kennedy Show” as the freshman left fielder hit two walk-offs — a grand slam against San Diego and a single to center against Georgetown.

“I was just thinking that the pressure is on the defense at this point, there’s no pressure on me,” Kennedy said. “I think the most outs that I had when I was up to bat in that situation was only one, so I knew if I didn’t do it, my team always has my back and they did. …

“Our team did a great job this week situational hitting. I think that just showed in the way that we played this entire weekend. Just getting things done, moving runners and just putting ourselves in the best position to win.”

Kennedy, who 5 for 6 on Saturday with five RBIs, getting it done with the long ball, a long single and two bunts. She is now batting .348 with a slugging percentage of .576.

“It’s scary to defend her,” Arizona coach Caitlin Lowe said. “Our team knows that in intra-squad scrimmages because you really don’t want to play up in her face for a drag bunt ... she’ll do something like that to you.

“Her and Paige (Dimler) and Blaise (Biringer), they all have the capability of doing that at any time. (It’s) just awesome to have that in your toolbox, and then it starts to open up the rest of the field for (Kennedy).”

In the first inning against San Diego, Devyn Netz (2 for 3, two RBIs) drove in a run on a single to left, and Biringer (2 for 2) brought in two on another single to left.

Toreros pitcher Madison Earnshaw kept the Wildcats off the bases and from threatening until the fifth inning. That’s when Arizona adjusted and just kept getting hit after hit after hit.

After designated player Ali Ashner walked, Dimler hit a double to center field. A walk to Jasmine Perezchica loaded the bases for Skaggs, who hit a shot into right-center field, scoring Ashner.

Netz followed that with another single to left field, driving in Dimler. Still with the bases loaded and no outs, freshman Oilvia DiNardo, who played catcher all weekend with Izzy Pacho out for personal reasons, added another run with a hit to center.

San Diego pulled Earnshaw, and Kelsey Tadlock gave up the grand slam over the left-field wall to Kennedy — her only hit of the game. The freshman has hit two grand slams this season. The first was against Utah on March 19.

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Netz on a roll

Besides Arizona’s bats coming alive in both games, Netz was dominant in the circle again.

She threw her second shutout in back-to-back games against San Diego. After striking out a career-high 11 batters and giving up only three hits Friday night in a 6-0 win, Netz shut down the Toreros again, giving up only one hit to the 17 batters she faced.

She enticed eight groundouts and four flyouts while striking out three and walking one. Her ERA dropped to 2.79.

The lone hit she gave up came in the fourth to Mikaylah Emanuelli — in the only inning Netz didn’t set the batting order down in order.

“I think Devyn throwing back-to-back days was huge,” Lowe said. “She actually came up with different tools, I thought, today than she had yesterday, which was a big deal. ... She threw more off-speed today. Last night she had some velocity. Facing the same team, it’s nice because they’re expecting one thing and then she’s able to show them something different.”

Team effort

Freshman Ali Blanchard got the start against Georgetown and gave up no hits the first two innings. She was tagged with a three-run home run in the third, as the Hoyas tied it up, 3-3. She came right back and put the Hoyas down in order after the Wildcats scored three more runs in the bottom of the third to take a 6-3 lead.

Blanchard gave up three runs on three hits, struck out three and walked three, facing 21 batters — and it was her knuckleball that was working.

DiNardo said it took a little adjusting as the umpires behind the plate for each game had different strike zones — one was high, the other low.

At the plate, DiNardo went 3 for 4 against the Hoyas and accounted for four of the Wildcats’ 12 runs on two singles and a two-run home run over the left-field wall — her fifth of the season. She is now batting .460.

In the bottom of the third, with runners on second and third, Tayler Biehl hit a sacrifice fly to drive in DiNardo, and Sophia Carroll slugged a run-scoring double to center. Dimler added another run with a double to right-center.

The Wildcats added five more runs in the fourth to take an 11-3 lead.

Skaggs hit home run No. 10 on the season — her third in two day. DiNardo’s two-run shot, Biringer’s RBI double and Dimler’s sac fly rounded out the scoring for the Wildcats.

In the top of the fifth inning, Perezchica saved a possible double, running with an outstretched arm to catch a fly ball hit into right-center. Then the Hoyas put two runners on and scored a run on a shot by Mae Forshey over the extended arm of Carroll at short.

Kennedy came up in the bottom of the fifth with runners on second and third — Skaggs, who walked, and Logan Cole, who reached on an error. Then, Kennedy punched the game-winning single.

Arizona heads to Northern California on Thursday to play Stanford.