Every now and then, the stars align, the weather is gorgeous, and the play ends just right.

It was that way for the Idaho State softball team this past weekend. In the middle of a 13-game homestand, the weather turned perfect, and the script wasn’t far behind.

After taking two of three games from Oregon State earlier in the week, the Bengals opened a three-game series against a good Seattle University team on Saturday at Miller Ranch Stadium.

Things didn’t start off quite like ISU wanted, with the Bengals falling behind 6-3 heading into the bottom of the seventh of the opener. Even though they’re having an excellent season, the Bengals did not have a seventh-inning comeback win yet this year. But on Saturday, they scratched out three runs with two fielder’s choice outs and a soft single to send the game into extra innings.

Then it was gut-check time.

With Kasey Aguinaga in the pitching circle, having relieved Riley Wickum in the top of the seventh, the Bengals and Redhawks went back and forth for another five innings, with neither team able to break through offensively.

“I think when you see games extend like that, that’s where everybody starts to get out of their comfort zone and everybody is trying to be the hero and end the game,” said ISU head coach Andrew Rich. “I think you saw that on both sides … You’ve gotta find a way to stay within yourself. It does drag on and you get tired, and you’re doing everything you can to stay locked in.”

Fortunately for the Bengals, shortstop Camryn McDonald, who already had three hits and three RBI on the day, was fully locked in when she stepped to the plate against Berkley Vance in the bottom of the 12th.

“I was thinking she (Vance) had been on and around the plate all day,” said McDonald. “I’d been seeing the ball well and I was thinking, ‘Swing hard if it’s there.’ And I got just enough on it — 201 [feet].”

That was just enough to barely carry over the left-center field fence and end a game that was tied for second-longest in ISU history. McDonald, who didn’t think the ball was going out, was busting it around the bases when she saw it leave the park. The entire Bengal dugout was waiting for her when she crossed home plate.

That was around 4:45 p.m. The second game of the doubleheader was scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. Having already played five games in five days, it would have been understandable if the Bengals didn’t put forth their best effort in Game 2, which eventually began at 5:30 p.m. and, with no lights at Miller Ranch, was up against a 7:44 p.m. sunset.

On what was not the best day for a usually explosive ISU offense, the Bengals scored twice in the first inning and then held on for dear life behind the pitching of Marley Goluskin and, once again, Aguinaga. Goluskin held the Redhawks to one run in 5⅔ innings, and Aguinaga came in with the tying run on second in the sixth and got the final out. She then ended the game the very next inning by striking out leadoff hitter Mikee Morris. She came in hitting over .400 and fouled off several pitches late in the count to stay alive.

“I was just telling myself to be smart,” said Aguinaga, who finished the day with a win and a save. “I was just thinking, ‘I’m ahead in the count, so just be smart and not leave it on the plate.’ I know if I leave it on the plate, she’ll hit it.”

The Bengals finished Saturday with back-to-back one-run wins for the first time this season. They had come into the series with a 3-3 record in one-run contests. This was the kind of test Rich had in mind when he helped mastermind the Big Sky-West Coast Conference scheduling agreement, which had Big Sky teams traveling to their WCC counterparts last weekend, with return trips to Big Sky schools this weekend.

“It’s huge,” said Rich of the two tight contests on Saturday. “We’re going to be in those games in conference and we need to be able to finish those out. We’ve got to be able to find a way to finish games — or to come back and take a lead late and win a game. That was the first time all year that we’ve been down in the seventh inning and won a game, too.”

With a 9-1 run-rule victory over Seattle in five innings on Sunday, ISU heads into Big Sky Conference play with a 23-13 record. Weather permitting, the Bengals will play 23 home games on their artificial turf field, the most in program history, before hosting the Big Sky Conference tournament in May. It’s all part of Rich’s plan to make Direct Communications Field at Miller Ranch Stadium the toughest venue in the conference for visiting teams to squeeze out a win.

“It’s everything for us,” Rich said of collecting home games. “We have the turf and we’re going to make this our home field. We’re going to play a lot of home games. We want to protect this field. We want to play our best here. We don’t lose games at home.”

As of this weekend, the Bengals are 10-2 at home. Rich has done everything in his power to create a representative home schedule, something that coaches of all sports at Idaho State seem to struggle with. Getting teams to travel to Pocatello, no matter the sport, is a challenge.

“We’re going to do what we have to do to get teams to come here,” said Rich. “Whether we gotta pay somebody, whether we gotta do a home-and-home, whatever it ends up being, we’ve gotta get people here so we can play home games. We didn’t get the turf to not play at home. We got the turf so we can play home games.”

The Bengals will continue to be home-sweet-home next weekend, when Weber State travels up Interstate 15 to begin conference play with a three-game set beginning at 1 p.m. on Saturday. The Wildcats are 9-24 after winning two in a row against Loyola Marymount this weekend.

ISU gets to kick off Big Sky play with their rivals and, as luck would have it, the weather forecast is calling for another sunny weekend with highs in the 70s. Now it’s up to the Bengals to write another perfect ending to that script.

*Brad Bugger has been observing athletics in southeastern Idaho since 1979 as a sportswriter, broadcaster and fan. He can be reached at bpbugger@gmail.com*