Northridge Content With Split Against Bakersfield

The Cal State Northridge softball team was strangely unconcerned after a 3-1 loss Saturday to Cal State Bakersfield.

The reaction was understandable, however, in light of the Lady Matadors’ 4-0 victory in the first game of the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. doubleheader at Northridge. The win practically assured CSUN of its seventh consecutive conference title.

“We realized this was basically for the conference championship,” CSUN’s Beth Onestinghel said. “We played to win. We wanted that game, definitely.”

Northridge entered the doubleheader having already swept the Roadrunners in two previous conference games, so the split gave CSUN a 3-1 advantage in head-to-head competition.

Head-to-head results will be used to break a tie for the title. And CSUN and Bakersfield could finish with identical records. The only way the Lady Matadors (43-11, 12-2 in conference play) can lose the championship is if they drop two of their six remaining games and the Roadrunners (37-7-1, 11-3) win the rest of theirs.

Northridge Coach Gary Torgeson does not believe anything like that will occur, even though Saturday’s split was the second in as many days for the Lady Matadors, who had won 30 consecutive games before this weekend.

“This team is a good one, as good as any I’ve ever had,” he said. “In a way, the split is probably a blessing in disguise. If they’re thinking that they’re so good and the wins are just coming to them, now they know better.

“We made a couple of mistakes that we don’t normally make, but these kinds of things are going to happen. You just don’t want them to happen at the end of the year. I think this team will be right there at the end.”

CSUN’s Reggie Lyons thought she was right there at first base in the bottom of the seventh inning of the second game. But she was called out after trying to beat out a throw from short to lead off the inning.

“I thought I beat the ball,” she said. “I thought I had it, and I think it would have sparked us, because as soon as we get somebody on--especially the leadoff batter--it usually gets us going.”

After Michelle McCage grounded out to third, Anna Getherall singled up the middle to keep the Lady Matadors alive. But then Lisa Erickson, the only CSUN player to get two hits off Bakersfield freshman Lisa Drollinger (16-2), grounded out to first to end the game.

CSUN scored its run in the sixth when Onestinghel singled, moved to second on a sacrifice and came home on Lisa Hall’s single to right.

Two of Bakersfield’s runs were unearned. The first score came in the second after two hits, a stolen base and an error. In the third, Janice Heriford scored after she reached on an error, stole second, went to third on a groundout and came home on a sacrifice fly. Sas Trotter scored Bakersfield’s final run from second on a base hit by Kari Tallant in the top of the seventh.

In CSUN’s win, sophomore Debbie Dickmann threw a one-hitter, pitching to only two batters over the minimum. She struck out four and walked one. The only hit she allowed was a first-inning double to Barb Santa Cruz.

Onestinghel was 3 for 3 with a run batted in and one run scored to spark CSUN’s offense. Northridge scored two runs in the first on three hits and added single runs in the fourth and fifth.

In the fourth, Lisa Martin’s triple drove in Kim Bernstein, who had singled to left. And in the fifth, McCage scored the final run after she got an infield hit, was sacrificed to second, moved to third on a wild pitch and came home on a single to left-center by Onestinghel.