LA JOLLA, Calif. ? The UC San Diego softball team continued its good play of late, picking up its second-straight CCAA doubleheader sweep, this time over visiting Cal State Bakersfield on Monday evening at Triton Softball Field. With the two victories the Tritons improve to 14-12 overall and 9-3 in CCAA play while dropping the Roadrunners to 11-10 overall and 8-6 in conference action.
Both games were played with Cal State Bakersfield as the designated home team. The doubleheader was originally supposed to be played on the CSUB campus, but due to scheduling conflicts, the matchup was moved to La Jolla. The two teams will hook up once again for another twin bill on Tuesday, April 17th. UCSD will be the home team for those two contests at Triton Softball Field.
The first game of the day saw the reigning CCAA Pitcher of the Week dominate another opponent. Junior Melissa Ward tossed her 13th complete game of the season, allowing no runs while scattering six hits with no walks and four strikeouts. She improved to 10-4 on the year with the win.
Sophomore Jenni Habib had two hits and two RBI while junior Jenny Maze and freshman Nicole Saari each had one hit and one run driven in.
Danielle Lyman and Kelli Bailey each had two hits in the loss for the Roadrunners, accounting for two-thirds of the team's total hits. Kristyn Daniels took the loss for CSUB and fell to 8-4 on the year, allowing four earned runs on seven hits in six full innings of work.
CSUB pitcher Shawna Truan, who tossed a hitless final inning of game one, started game two and had the Tritons completely baffled for the first five innings of the contest, allowing only one hit. The ?Runners held a 3-0 lead after five frames before UCSD got one run back in the sixth inning off a Habib RBI single through the left side.
Cal State Bakersfield answered back with one run of its own in the bottom half of the frame before it all fell apart.
The Tritons got five runs on five hits in the top half of the seventh inning, highlighted by RBI singles from Maze and Habib. The game-tying run was actually scored by Brittni Carino on a wild pitch from reliever Katie Chavez. It was her first pitch of the game.
UCSD junior Nicole Fullerton, who came in for starter Lauren Chastain, threw 2 1/3 innings of solid relief in which she allowed two runs on five hits before giving way to Ward with two outs in the bottom half of the seventh inning. Ward got the final out on a grounder to second base, picking up her first save of the season. Fullerton improves to 1-2 with her relief effort.
Truan took the loss and fell to 3-6 on the season for the Roadrunners. Bethany Snow, Carrie Hilvers and Hilary Taylor each had two hits for CSUB.
Habib finished with three hits in game two for the Tritons and concluded the twin bill with a 5-for-7 day with four RBI.
UCSD will put its four-game CCAA winning streak on the line this Friday and Saturday, hosting a pair of doubleheaders at Triton Softball Field against No. 14 Cal State Stanislaus. Friday's double-dip is slated for a 1 p.m. first pitch while Saturday's twin bill is scheduled to get underway at 11 a.m.
