SOFTBALL ‘mdash; Because of the toll that catching ball games takes on a player’s knees, catchers in the major leagues usually get the second game of a doubleheader off. In the Tritons’ tripleheader victory against the Seawolves over the weekend, junior catcher Nicole Saari had no such luck, helping UCSD to victory the hard way.
After a doubleheader on March 6 at Sonoma State was cancelled due to poor weather, the Tritons (12-9, 6-5 CCAA) and Seawolves (8-12, 6-9 CCAA) played three straight games the following day, with UCSD posting easy victories in the opening and final games of the set to take the series win.
Along with several other Tritons, Saari started all three games for UCSD, catching the bookend matches and playing first base for the middle one.
‘I’m glad we won the last game ‘mdash; we were tired out by the end of it,’ Saari said. ‘I’ve never played three games in one day, at least in not in my college career. You actually get to know the other team pretty well, playing them three times in a row.’
Coming off a 3-1 loss to defending national champion Humboldt State in a four-game set the previous weekend, the Tritons were ready to take a series win any way they could get it.
‘We were definitely disappointed with our series against Humboldt and we wanted to go in there and take it out on Sonoma to turn around our momentum,’ Saari said.
Following the road win, UCSD returns home to face Cal State Stanislaus March 13 and 14 for a four-game set.
‘ ‘We expect close games because our whole league is so close this year,’ Saari said. ‘They have a better record than us but that’s not intimidating. We know we can go in there and sweep them and that’s what our goal is.’
The Triton offense burst from the gates against Sonoma State in the first game, bolstered by four-run innings in the second and the sixth. The game ended after the sixth as UCSD secured a 9-1 mercy-rule victory.
‘It was really important to have the good start to the series,’ senior first baseman Jenni Habib said. ‘We played as strong as we have all season. It set the tone and let us know that we were back in our game.’
After the offensive outburst in the opening match, the Triton lineup struggled to put up runs against the Seawolves in the second game of the day. UCSD managed just four hits against Sonoma State’s Brittany Reynolds, eventually falling 2-1.
‘I think what happened was that we just got in our heads a little bit too much,’ Habib said of the Triton batters in the second game. ‘We let the umpires dictate the game instead of taking it in our own hand and attacking the ball.’
Senior starting pitcher Lauren Chastain and Seawolf starting pitcher Lindsay Emmel were locked in an impressive pitcher’s duel through six innings of the final game, with neither of them giving up a run.
Saari led off in the seventh, reaching first base on an error. Habib then stepped up to the plate, ripping a triple to right field that plated sophomore utility Megan Grace, who was pinch running for Saari. The Tritons added four more runs, en route to a 5-0 win.
Readers can contact Janani Sridharan at [email protected].