SOFTBALL — Facing their toughest opponent of the 2008
season, the Tritons dropped all four games in their weekend series against the
Humboldt State University Lumberjacks. UCSD came away with a 5-2 win over
Humboldt in a nonconference game earlier
in the year, but mustered only six runs en route to being swept by the
sixth-ranked Lumberjacks. With the losses, UCSD now falls to 28-18 overall with
a 13-13 CCAA record, while Humboldt grabs sole possession of first place with a
record of 40-14 (17-7 CCAA).
Despite the four-game sweep, the Tritons are still in a
solid position to make the CCAA playoffs, but must use the remaining six
conference games to regain their lost momentum.
“[Dropping the four games against Humboldt] shows that we
have our work cut out for us and we need to go from here,” senior left-hander
Melissa Ward said. “I think we know what we need to do now; we know how we have
to play so that makes our next six games matter all that much more.”
All season long the Tritons have won behind their stellar
pitching staff, with their offense coming alive in spurts just often enough to
deliver many crucial wins. This past weekend, however, Humboldt’s Lizzy
Prescott outshined UCSD’s pitchers, rendering what few runs the Tritons were
able to score almost meaningless. Prescott pitched every inning of the
four-game series, picking up four wins and 33 strikeouts over her 28 innings.
“Prescott just kept the hitters guessing a lot; she had a
good rise ball that people would swing through and then she would come back and
spot up strikes,” Ward said. “She’s a good pitcher and she kept our bats off balance.”
Game one saw Ward, UCSD’s ace, go toe-to-toe with Prescott
in what proved to be a classic pitcher’s duel. Ward allowed a second-inning run
on a pair of Lumberjack hits but yielded nothing else while throwing a complete
game — the 79th of her career — to move her into first place all-time for UCSD
in that category. Humboldt’s one-run cushion was all the wiggle room the
All-American Prescott needed, striking out 12 Tritons and allowing only three
base runners. Both UCSD hits came off the bat of junior right fielder Allison
May, who doubled with two outs in the seventh inning but was stranded, representing the tying run.
Head coach Patti Gerckens sent junior pitcher Lauren
Chastain to the mound to start in game two, but the durable right-hander was
unable to make it out of the first inning after allowing three Lumberjack runs
to cross the plate. After the early Humboldt scoring, Ward came back in but
fared no better, giving up a pair of homeruns to extend the Lumberjack lead to
5-0. The Tritons finally broke through off Prescott in the top of the sixth as
freshman shortstop Sarah Woofter smashed a two-run homerun and senior second
baseman Danielle Lukk picked up an RBI single to pull within two runs, 5-3.
Humboldt answered UCSD’s rally with three runs of its own in the bottom half of
the inning to regain a five-run lead and guarantee a sweep in the opening
doubleheader.
The games on April 12 eerily mimicked the first two contests
of the series, as Prescott again threw a two-hit shutout in the morning game
and was able to hold off a late Triton rally in the nightcap to seal the sweep.
In the third game of the series, Prescott handcuffed UCSD for the first six
frames before May and junior first baseman Jenni Habib singled to break up the
no-hitter in the seventh inning. Ward again threw a complete game, giving up
only one earned run, but found herself on the short end of a 2-1 loss.
On the verge of their first series sweep of the season, the
Tritons turned in a gutsy team performance that came up just short in the
series finale. Chastain battled on the mound for UCSD, giving up only one run
over the first five innings. Habib gave the Tritons their first lead of the
series in the top of the sixth when her one-out single scored May and freshman
outfielder Katrin Gabriel to spot Chastain a 2-1 lead. The Lumberjacks
immediately responded to UCSD’s lead by loading the bases with no outs in the
bottom of the sixth.
Gerckens took Chastain out and replaced her with Ward, who
was able to get the first crucial out by inducing a short pop fly to
centerfield. Just when it seemed that the Tritons might escape the jam and
squeak out a win, Humboldt’s Caitlin Klug hit a heartbreaking grand slam to put
the Lumberjacks back ahead 5-2, a lead that would hold despite a seventh-inning
Triton run in the eventual 5-3 loss.
“It was a little bit of a mistake pitch and [she] made me
pay,” Ward said. “[Klug] had a really good weekend, it was her third homerun of
the series but that last one was still on me.”
The sweep drops the Tritons into a three-way tie for third
place in the CCAA with Cal State Monterey Bay and San Francisco State. UCSD
will return home on April 18 against Cal State Dominguez Hills with only eight
games left in the regular season before playoffs start on May 1.
“We just need to win our games, simple as that,” Ward said.
“We’re in a really good spot right now in who we play, so it’s on us to go out
there and win.”
