No. 20 Arizona softball falls 5-1 at No. 7 Stanford; Cats 1-7 in last 8 Pac-12 games

The No. 20 Arizona softball team's Pac-12 woes continued Thursday night, as the Wildcats managed just four hits in a 5-1 loss at Stanford — the UA's seventh loss in its last eight conference games.

The seventh-ranked Cardinal (29-6, 6-4 Pac-12) broke open a scoreless game by putting up four in the bottom of the fourth inning — a manufacturing of a four-spot that started with Stanford's River Mahler striking out, but reaching base by way of a dropped third strike. Stanford followed that up with a single, a sac bunt, a fielders choice by Arizona (24-13, 3-7) that failed to yield an out, a stolen base, another UA fielder's choice with no resulting out, another stolen base, and yet another single.

When all was said and done, Stanford had four runs on two hits off UA starter Devyn Netz, yet the Wildcats hadn't officially commit a single error in the scorebook.

Arizona would get one back on an Allie Skaggs RBI single in the top of the fifth, but that's all the offense the Wildcats could muster off Stanford starter Alana Vawter at Smith Family Stadium. Stanford would get one one more in the bottom of the sixth to close out the scoring. 

Vawter (13-3) threw a complete-game, four-hitter, allowing one run (unearned) while striking out three and walking 1. Netz (11-10) threw five innings for Arizona, giving up four runs on four hits, but only one earned. She had seven strikeouts and allowed one walk before making way for Sydney Somerndike who allowed one earned run on one hit and two walks in one inning of relief work. 

Stanford's Allie Clements finished 2 for 3 with three RBIs at the plate, while Emily Young was 2 for 3. For Arizona, Skaggs, Jasmine Perezchica, Netz and Tayler Biehl each had one hit to round out Arizona's offense.

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After taking the first two games of their series with rival ASU on March 10-11, the Wildcats have won just one Pac-12 game — a back-and-forth 10-9 win over Utah in nine innings on March 18. Arizona's seven Pac-12 losses over that span include a 4-3 defeat to ASU, 8-3 and 13-11 losses to Utah, a sweep at Washington (3-1, 4-3, 6-4) that included a pair of walk-off home runs for the Huskies, and now Thursday's loss in Northern California.

The Wildcats have won six times outside of Pac-12 play since the loss to ASU — two over New Mexico State (15-15), two over Georgetown (10-24) and two over San Diego (14-21-1)

Arizona is now in ninth place out of 10 teams in the ever-deep Pac-12 standings, with only Oregon State (11-21-1, 2-10-1) behind the Wildcats. A year ago, Arizona also finished ninth out of 10 in conference play in the loaded Pac-12, yet still managed to reach the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City in coach Caitlin Lowe's first season at the helm.

Arizona and Stanford continue their three game set Friday at 6 p.m. before closing out the series Saturday at noon.