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The Michigan State Spartans’ softball team defeated the Akron Zips 6-0 in seven innings on Sunday afternoon.
The highlight of the game, however, was Michigan State sophomore pitcher Ashley Miller, who threw a perfect game in the win. She struck out 14 batters and improved to 3-0 on the season. Miller only allowed a total of 11 baserunners and zero runs in 21 innings pitched (three games) during the Northern Lights, Southern Nights invitational. She struck out 14 of the 21 batters she faced against Akron, with five groundouts and two flyouts.
MSU fifth-year senior Catie Ladd scored first on a wild pitch by Akron’s Olivia Stefanoni in the first inning. The Spartans scored two more in the fourth inning after Kennedy Wyllie doubled to left, Kayleigh Roper doubled to score Brooke Snyder (pinch running for Wyllie) and Macy Lee singled to score Roper. All of those hits came with two outs.
Abby Joseph and Wyllie scored again in the sixth inning, putting MSU up 5-0. A sixth run was scored in the seventh inning when Zaquai Dumas doubled down the left field line, which scored by Camryn Wincher.
Miller’s perfect game is the third in program history for Michigan State and first since 2007 when Megan Hair blanked Saint Joseph’s (Becky Gray and Jessica Beech combined for the first perfect game in program history in 2002).
During the invitational in Florida, Michigan State took a 1-0 win against Pittsburgh on Friday morning, a 7-0 loss to Kentucky on Friday night, a 6-0 win against UConn on Saturday afternoon, a 5-1 loss to Virginia Tech later on Saturday and the aforementioned 6-0 win against Akron on Sunday.
Michigan State begins the 2022 softball season with a 3-2 record, but, as mentioned, the two losses were to Kentucky and Virginia Tech. The latter just went undefeated in the invitational, while the former had one loss and it was to Virginia Tech. Not so bad.
MSU will have five games in Jacksonville next weekend in double-headers against Jacksonville University and North Florida, and a single game against Mercer.