LA JOLLA, Calif. - The UC San Diego softball team split Friday's doubleheader with Cal State Dominguez Hills, taking the first game 7-0 before dropping the second contest by a score of 9-1.
The Tritons, standing at 24-12 overall and 14-8 in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, jumped out to a strong start Friday behind a three-run homerun from freshman Katie Belanger and a career-high nine strikeouts by sophomore right-hander Camille Gaito. Lackluster fielding by UCSD helped the Toros cruise to a six-inning win in game two. CSUDH stands at 20-16 overall and 12-10 in league play. The two teams will conclude their four-game series Saturday starting at 12 p.m.
In the third inning of the first game, juniors Lyndsay Gaylord and Jennifer De Fazio started a Tritons' rally with back-to-back singles. After an error on the Toros put UCSD on the board, freshman Nicole Spangler lashed a two-out single down the leftfield line to put the Tritons up 3-0. Belanger followed with a single of her own, giving UCSD an early 4-0 advantage.
The Tritons would tack on three more scores in the fifth inning, thanks to Belanger launching her second homerun of the season over the leftfield fence to collect three runs batted in.
As UCSD's offensive outpouring continued, Gaito put together one of her best performances this season. Retiring 16-straight Toros' hitters at one point, Gaito ended with a complete-game shutout as she racked up a career-high nine strikeouts along the way. The two hits she allowed came off the bats of Katie Garcia and Caitlin McGrath, the No. 1 and No. 2 batters in the CSUDH lineup. Gaito, owner of the third-best earned run average in the nation entering this week, improved to 12-6 on the season while Toros' starter Lauren Harper fell to 4-5.
Game two appeared to be a close affair through the first inning but in fact, it soon turned into another lopsided affair. This time, thanks in large part to five errors committed by the Tritons, it went in CSUDH's favor.
Garcia knocked a leadoff homerun, giving the Toros an early 1-0 lead. UCSD rallied right back to tie the game in the bottom half of the first inning, when a single from Nicole Saari brought in Kris Lesovsky.
The CSUDH offense ended up tallying two runs in the third, one in the fifth and five in the sixth to top the Tritons in a shortened 9-1 victory across six innings. The final eight runs for the Toros' came as unearned on UCSD hurlers Tess Granath and Brittany Sheats.
The offensive stars for CSUDH in game two were Garcia, who went 3-for-4 with three runs and two runs batted in, and shortstop Emiley McEwen, who contributed a 2-for-4 performance that included a two-run single to bring in the Toros' final runs on the afternoon.
