LOS ANGELES ? Playing the highest?ranked opponent in school history didn't intimidate the CSUB softball team, but No. 7 UCLA still proved its pedigree with a 3?0 win Wednesday afternoon at Easton Field.
Freshman pitcher Brittany Johnson was solid, but a pair of unearned runs in the first inning proved her undoing. She allowed 10 hits ? all singles ? and didn't allow an earned run until the sixth.
“Overall, I thought we did a good job,” said CSUB Head Coach Kathy Welter. “They could have exploded after they got those two early runs, but we held them in check and gave ourselves a chance to get back into the game.
“UCLA is going to score a lot of runs against more established teams than us this season. Being able to hold them should give Brittany and the rest of the team a lot of confidence.”
Though Johnson threw well, the Bruin tandem of Donna Kerr and Megan Langenfeld proved too tough for the CSUB offense. The Roadrunners entered the game hitting .347 and averaging more than four runs per game. But CSUB managed just two hits and five baserunners Wednesday.
Freshman first baseman Brooklyn Stuart broke up Kerr's no-hit bid by poking a one-out single up the middle in the fourth inning. Senior catcher Hilary Taylor added a one-out single off Centennial High grad Langenfeld in the fifth.
The UCLA bats, meanwhile, needed no time to adjust against CSUB. The Bruins used four singles and a critical error to push across a pair of unearned runs in the bottom of the first inning. Johnson settled down to scatter four hits over the next four innings before Monica Harrison's two?out single in the bottom of the sixth drove home the game's final run.
“Staying close with a team the caliber of UCLA is a big accomplishment,” said Welter. “The next step will be adjusting to this level of pitching. “We're going to face other pitchers of this caliber later in the season and we'll have to make adjustments.”
CSUB will get that chance this weekend when they head to the 2008 San Diego Classic. The 'Runners will face a five?game gauntlet that includes encounters with nationally?ranked Fresno State Friday and Oregon Saturday.
“Going into this first season, we didn't even know if we could compete with any of the teams we would see at this level,” said Welter. “Games like today's show that we can compete with even the best teams. But unlike most Division I teams, this is our first chance to see pitching at this level, and we have a lot of room to grow.”
Score by Innings R H E
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CSU Bakersfield..... 000 000 0 - 0 2 2
UCLA................ 200 001 X - 3 10 1
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E - KLEIN 2(16); Langenfeld(2). DP - Roadrunners 1. LOB - Roadrunners 5;
Bruins 6. SH - Kamekona(3); Shull(1).
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