SOFTBALL WINS TWO MORE, WINNING STREAK NOW AT NINE GAMES
3/18/2012
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Sacramento State won two more games on Sunday, and in the process, increased its winning streak to nine games as the Hornets were playing in their final day of the Capital Classic Softball Tournament Sunday afternoon at Shea Stadium.
Hornet pitchers Caitlin Brooks and Taylor Stroud combined on a four-hit shutout in a 1-0 win over Colorado State (12-17) in the team’s early game, and Marissa Navarro’s walkoff three-run homer highlighted a 10-1 mercy-rule shortened victory over Princeton (3-9) in the team’s second game.
Sacramento State’s nine-game winning streak is tied for the program’s second longest since joining the Div. I ranks in 1990 (the 1994 and 1995 teams also accomplished the feat). During the winning streak, the team is batting .314 with six home runs and 47 RBIs while the pitching staff has a 1.63 ERA. The Hornets are now just one win shy of the school’s Div. I record for longest winning streak (10), set in 2003.
Sacramento State improved to 16-8 with the victories, marking the first time the team has been eight games above the .500 mark since the 2008 season. The Hornets finished the rain-condensed Capital Classic with a 2-0 record, while Louisville (1-0), Princeton (1-2), Colorado State (1-2) and Akron (1-2) also competed in the two-day event. The tournament was supposed to be three days long, but all of Friday was cancelled because of rain.
In today’s win over Colorado State, Brooks worked the first 4.1 innings while Stroud worked the final 2.2 innings to combine on the pitching staff’s fifth shutout of the season. Brooks (3-4) got the win, allowing just two hits and one walk with five strikeouts. Stroud, who worked out of a one-out, bases loaded jam in the fifth inning, recorded her second save, allowing two hits with one strikeout.
The two teams combined for just seven hits as Colorado State starter Molly Randle (0-5) picked up the loss despite allowing just three hits and one run over six innings.
Sacramento State scored the only run of the game in the first inning when Emily McCormick laid down a successful suicide squeeze bunt scoring Devin Caldwell from third base. The Hornets had just two hits and did not advance a runner past second base the rest of the game.
In the win over Princeton, the Hornets pounded out 10 runs and 10 hits which included all but one starter tallying at least one hit. No hit was louder than Navarro’s blast in the fifth inning, which cleared the left field wall by 30 feet. The no doubter, which came with two outs in the fifth inning, gave the Hornets a 10-1 lead and the mercy-rule shortened victory.
Sacramento State scored once in the first inning, five times in the third and four more in the fifth. The Hornets sent 10 batters to the plate in the third inning, highlighted by a two-run double from Kaitlyn Taylor and a two-run single from Kelli Frye. Navarro’s three-run shot in the fifth scored both Frye and pinch runner Lauren Blair.
Navarro finished the game 2-for-4 with two runs and three RBIs, Taylor was 2-for-3 with two RBIs, Frye scored two runs and had an RBI, and Jessica Abelia scored a pair of runs. Sacramento State right-hander Shelby Voelz (4-1) has now won each of her last four starts after allowing just three hits and one run over five innings.
Princeton’s Alex Peyton (1-4) got the loss, allowing eight hits and six runs (five earned) in three innings. All four runs in the fifth were unearned and came off Tigers’ reliever Meredith Brown.
Sacramento State will take the next week off for Spring Break, and return to action for a home doubleheader on Monday, March 26, against UC Santa Barbara at 1:30 p.m.
