Taylor McQuillin was almost perfect in relief Sunday, and as a result the Arizona Wildcats are headed to the Super Regionals.
Mississippi State hit three early solo homers off UA starter Alyssa Denham, but ace McQuillin came to the rescue for the No. 14-seeded Wildcats (43-14), who won 4-3 over the Bulldogs.
Arizona will next play at No. 3 UCLA in the Super Regionals next weekend. The winner of that best-of-three series will advance to the Women’s College World Series.
“Coming in, I think my goal was just to keep runs off the board,” McQuillin said. “My team had worked so hard to get three runs, so I had to make sure that I could shut the other team down to so they could go out and continue the job and not be as stressed or tensed in the back.”
McQuillin didn’t allow a hit and walked only one in pitching the final 5⅔ innings.
The Wildcats made it to the Hillenbrand Region championship game after shutting out Saint Francis (Pa.) 1-0 on Friday and North Dakota State 6-0 on Saturday.
In the second inning, after striking out one, allowing the third homer and walking one, Candrea made the decision to pull Denham and put in McQuillin, who had started the first two games of the weekend.
The decision to start Denham had been made the night prior as a means to prevent the UA ace from having to start three straight days, but the game didn’t go according to plan.
Before the Bulldogs’ third homer, the Wildcats were able to score three runs in the top of the second to take a 3-2 lead. Arizona loaded the bases on singles by Dejah Mulipola and Aleah Craighton and a hit-by-pitch to Ivy Davis.
Jenna Kean then drew a walk, handing Arizona its first run.
Ashleigh Hughes followed with a two-run single, scoring Craighton and Davis.
A double to left field by Craighton in the fifth scored Jessie Harper for the go-ahead run.
“I wasn’t really concerned because, from the first inning, our hitters were all over their pitcher,” Hughes said about having to come back.
Mississippi State coach Vann Stuedeman knew Arizona suffered an upset in the Super Regionals at home last year that prevented a trip to the WCWS and that the Wildcats wouldn’t want a repeat of that.
“You got to know they didn’t want that to happen again. You got to know that they wanted to defend their turf,” Stuedeman said. “Taylor came in and she took control.”
