The collegiate softball season may have just ended but Delaney Spaulding and Paige Halstead have stayed busy on the softball field.
On June 4, the two were in Oklahoma City representing UCLA in the Women’s College World Series. Just three weeks later, they flew to Tokyo to play for the USA Softball Women’s National Team.
The USA vs. Japan All-Star Series, held from June 23-25, was the first taste of international play for the two Bruins this year, as they head into a long summer schedule which spans across the next four months.
Japan’s pitching silenced the Americans’ bats in the first two games, with the Japanese team ceding just one run in 15 innings and earning two victories. The trend reversed in game three, however, as USA came away with a 5-1 victory behind eight hits and a home run from Cal alumna Valerie Arioto.
Spaulding, a rising senior infielder and a first-team all-conference player, started the first two games for USA but was a combined 0-3 with three walks at the plate. The Bruins’ leader in home runs and RBIs from last season has struggled since joining the national team, sporting a .153 batting average with one home run in six games played.
Halstead played the third game of the series but, like Spaulding, was stymied by the Japanese pitchers, going 0-3 with a strikeout as well. The rising sophomore is slated as the team’s backup catcher, behind former Michigan slugger Amanda Chidester.
The shining spot for the Bruins was alumna Ally Carda, who dominated the Japanese offense in game two of the series. The 2015 Pac-12 Player of the Year, and ace pitcher for the Bruins during her college career, scattered just three hits to go along with four strikeouts in six innings of work.
Carda didn’t miss many bats in her first three starts this summer, which led to an inflated 9.45 ERA in six and two-thirds innings pitched, but with her six shutout frames against Japan she diminished her ERA to a more attractive 4.97.
The USA Women’s National Team’s next games will be played during the Border Battle against the Canadian national team from July 4-6.