Softball falls to CS Northridge; drops tenth straight game
The sun wasn’t the only thing that didn’t come out Sunday.
The Utah State softball team bats didn’t come out either. Over the weekend the Ags came up empty against Conference rival Cal State Northridge losing all three games.
On Sunday USU only tallied four hits. Two of which came from the bat of Candice Hatch who went two for three with her first double of the year. The other hits were by Jessica Garnett and Amanda Carlson.
“No matter what you do individually, it’s a team sport,” Hatch said.
Cal State Northridge was only up by two runs until the top of the sixth inning when Shannon Acevedo slammed a three-run home run to increase the lead to five.
The Aggies were unable to score in the bottom of the fifth, and in the top of the seventh CSN scored two more insurance runs to cruise to another victory over Utah State 7-0.
The three losses will drop Utah State’s record to 7-32 overall and 3-6 in conference. The Aggies have lost 10 straight games after winning three straight to start off conference play.
“Some people are coming out and being as consistent as they can and other people aren’t being very consistent,” said Head Coach Debbie Bilbao. “That’s the name of the game; consistency, and offensively we are really struggling.”
The games on Saturday turned out to be much more of the same, more struggling bats for Utah State.
In both games combined, USU had only 11 hits and two runs, while CSN exploded for 28 hits and 22 runs.
“We need to relax and have fun and take it one day and one pitch at a time,” Hatch said. “We’re all pressing, especially at the plate, we’re swinging at pitches that we normally wouldn’t to try and make things happen.”
In the second game of the double-header on Saturday Northridge scored four runs on two hits in the first inning to jump out to an early lead. The Aggies did try and answer when Casey Smith slapped a double to bring in Jessica Garnett who walked earlier in the inning.
Northridge then scored four more runs by the bottom of the fourth inning when Utah State scored their final run of the game.
Kelly Leos led off the inning with a single then advanced to second on a single from Leslie Higley. Amanda Carlson then hit an infield single to load the bases for Haven Vance.
Vance then struck out bringing up Quela Henderson. Henderson walked bringing Leos around for the run.
With the score 8-2, the Matadors didn’t let up scoring seven runs on seven hits in the top of the fifth inning to end the game in five innings.
“It’s just a game, it really is, sure things are frustrating but life is frustrating,” Bilbao said.
The first game of the double-header had CSN striking early scoring three runs in the first inning.
The Matadors went on to score four more runs throughout the game while limiting USU to only six hits and no runs.
Hatch again went two for three. One of those hits started off one of the Aggies best scoring chances of the game. Hatch singled to left then advanced to third because of a double by Carlson. Vance then walked to load the bases for Henderson who slammed a line drive into right field for the final out of the inning to put a stop to the threat.
“It’s definitely frustrating, but we just need to put this weekend behind us and get ready for Tuesday, we play Utah and we need to be ready to play them,” Leos said.
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu