The Long Beach State softball team suffered its first series loss this season after dropping a pitcher’s duel in the series finale against Cal Poly 1-0 on Sunday at the LBSU Softball Complex.
The 49ers (24-16, 4-5) dropped below .500 in the conference after scoring just one run across three games this weekend. Cal Poly (19-17, 3-6) picked up 1-0 and 4-1 wins on Saturday before Sunday’s shutout victory.
LBSU head coach Kim Sowder called the series overall “very disappointing” and said that the shortcomings came mostly on her struggling hitters.
“It is very frustrating that we can’t put some runs on the board,” Sowder said. “All of our losses have been because we struggled offensively more than anything. And that’s going to happen, so we’ve got to find a way, defensively or whatever, to hang in there as long as we can.”
On Sunday, 49ers junior pitcher Christina Clermont allowed plenty of time for LBSU to take the lead. She allowed just two hits and no runs through five innings before giving up an RBI single to catcher Mckenna Young in the top of the sixth that put the Mustangs on top 1-0. Junior outfielder Courtney Tyler scored from second only after back-to-back errors by LBSU outfielder Rachel Loera and infielder L.T. Torres put her in scoring position.
After the loss, Sowder highlighted Clermont as one of the very few bright spots in the game and series. The right-hander threw for all seven innings and allowed five hits, three walks and struck out three batters.
“I think Christina [Clermont] is battling in the circle,” Sowder said. “She’s had a couple tough losses and battled out of tough situations. It’s a little bit harder to find [anything positive] right now, but there’s some there. We made some good plays and kept the game 0-0, but it was disappointing.”
Cal Poly’s sophomore pitcher Lindsey Chalmers threw opposite of Clermont and pitched a similar line. Chalmers threw a complete game shutout, allowing five hits, zero walks and throwing four strikeouts.
Sunday’s duel between Clermont and Chalmers wasn’t the first of the series. On Saturday, both pitchers threw complete games in game one, but it was Chalmers who got the win after Clermont walked Mustangs junior Ashley Tornio with the bases loaded in the fourth inning to give Cal Poly the 1-0 victory.
In game two, senior infielder Breana West went 2-4 with three RBIs in the 4-1 win. Senior Alley Perkins brought in LBSU’s only run of the series in the fourth inning.
“Defensively [we tried to] keep the ball down and honestly our plan was not to let [Senior infielder Darian] Tautalafua beat us,” Cal Poly head coach Jenny Condon said. “When she came up we weren’t going to give her anything … If we were going to get beat it was going to be by someone else.”
After hitting four home runs last weekend, Tautalafua went 0-7 and drew two walks for the series. Sowder said the 49ers must use the series sweep as motivation to get back on track. Even though its next two series are on the road, the 10th year head coach said LBSU can recover.
“We’ve done really well on the road this year,” Sowder said. “We’re kind of road warriors, so we’ll be ready to go next weekend.”
LBSU travels to Santa Barbara next to take on the Gauchos in a three-game series starting on Saturday at 1 p.m.