March 12, 2006
UC Davis 11, St. Francis (NY) 2
UC Davis 5, North Dakota State 4
SUNNYVALE, Calif. - UC Davis closed out play at the National Invitational Softball Tournament with a pair of victories Sunday in Sunnyvale. The Aggies first took just five innings to get past St. Francis (NY), 11-2. Later, UC Davis scored a run in the top of the seventh to defeat North Dakota State, 5-4. Ashley Johnson continued to wield a hot bat, going 4-for-7 on the day with two RBIs and three runs scored.
The Aggies collected a combined 18 hits in the two games. Marci Hill, Belinda Paine, Julie Stauder, Roxanne Hannan and Megan De La Hoya each added two hits apiece. Paine went 2-for-4 and had four stolen bases in as many attempts. As a team, the Aggies stole 10 bases in 10 attempts. Meanwhile, Johnson is batting .591 (13-for-22) over the past seven games.
Lauren Pieretti and Rachel Kelly each picked up wins in the circle. Pierreti allowed just one earned run and gave up four hits in her complete-game victory in five innings against St. Francis. Kelly came on in relief against North Dakota State and did not allow an earned run in four and a third innings. She gave up just one hit with one walk and one strikeout.
Against St. Francis (0-10), the Aggies scored three runs in the second and four runs in both the third and fourth innings. The first run came home on a single by Hannan in the second. A wild pitch and an error allowed the next two runs to come across. In the third, Hill doubled to drive in the fourth run. An RBI-single by Johnson made it 5-1. Later in the frame, a single by Sarah Phleger drove in another run to make it 7-1.
In the fourth, Sarah O'Neill had a two-run double to make it 9-2. Hannan followed with another run-scoring single, and the final run of the game came home on a fielder's choice.
Against North Dakota State, the Aggies trailed 1-0 before scoring three runs in the third. Paine started the scoring with an RBI-single to tie the game at 1-1. De La Hoya kept things going with a run-scoring single of her own to put UC Davis on top 2-1. The Aggies plated one more run in the inning to take a 3-1 lead into the bottom of the inning.
NDSU (4-14) responded with two runs in its half of the third and another run in the fourth to take a 4-3 lead.
In the fifth, Johnson connected for a two-out RBI-single to drive in De La Hoya with the tying run. In the seventh, De La Hoya led off with a double and advanced to third on a sacrifice. Nikki Sheldon followed with a sacrifice fly to drive in what turned out to be the winning run.
UC Davis is next in action March 24-26 when it takes part in a tournament hosted by Stanford.
