TURLOCK, Calif. -- The No. 4 ranked Cal State Monterey Bay softball team earned the right to play for the Silver Bracket Championship for the second consecutive season by sweeping Central Washington and Western Oregon in their final pool play games Saturday afternoon at Pedretti Park.
CSUMB (29-7 overall) will play Hawaii-Pacific (16-14) in the bracket semifinals sunday at noon. The winner will meet the winner of Central Washington and St. Martin's University for the bracket championship.
The Otters brought the lumber late in Saturday's opener. After Central took a 2-1 lead in the top of the sixth inning,
Madison Casto (Sunnyvale/Homestead HS) led off the bottom of the sixth with her fifth homer of the season, a towering fly to dead center field, to knot the game at 2-2. Following an
Anneliese Lopez (Ventura/Buena HS) single and a pair of outs, junior
Marielle Valdez (Atwater/Merced College) played the role of hero, belting her first collegiate home run to give the Otters the 4-2 victory.
Junior
Lindsey Clarkson (Fresno/Central HS) was stellar in the circle for the second consecutive day, allowing just five hits and striking out 10 for her 11th win of the season.
The win over Western Oregon came a little easier for the Otters, as
Cori Reinhardt (Riverside Poly) was dominant for the second consecutive game. The 3-time All-American scattered six hits and fanned nine Wolves to improve to 17-2 overall. The nine strikeouts were the second most in a game in her collegiate career.
The Otter offense gave her all the support she would need in the first inning via RBI single from Casto and
Bianca Noriega (Verntura/Camarillo HS). Casto chipped in a 3-run homer in the third--her sixth of the season--and added a sac fly in the fifth to give her five RBIs in the game. That's a career-high for the sophomore and the No. 3 mark in CSUMB history.
FRIDAY'S LATE ACTION
After a shocking 3-0 loss to Montana State Billings to open the tournament, CSUMB rebounded to finish Friday's action at 2-1. The Otters responded to the MSUB loss by earning their 10th run-rule win over the season in a 9-0 shutout of Northwest Nazarene.
Clarkson and
Danica Arterburn (Sparks, Nev./Spanish Springs HS) combined to strike out seven in a 5-inning, 2-hit shutout win. Noriega and
Alissa Greenhaw (Galt/Cosumnes River College) led the 10-hit attack with two knocks apiece.
That win merely whet the appetite of Otter fans for the main course that proved to be the second career no-hitter for Reinhardt, who blanked Holy Names 4-0. She fanned eight Hawks while Noriega powered the offense by going 3-for-3 with her sixth homer of the season.
For Reinhardt, meanwhile, it was the second consecutive game in which she threw a no-no on Pedretti Park's Field 5. She turned the trick last season in the Silver bracket semifinals versus Central Washington.
The Otters will play Sunday's Silver Bracket semifinal game against Hawaii Pacific on Pedretti Park Field 5.
Live stats for all Otter games will be available at www.OtterArthletics.com.
GO OTTERS!
