Slaten Pitches In With Win and Save in CSUN’s Sweep

Like a finely tuned automobile, the Cal State Northridge softball team appears to be cruising easily toward its fourth consecutive NCAA Division II championship.

CSUN, the nation’s top-ranked team in the latest coaches’ poll, coasted through a California Collegiate Athletic Assn. doubleheader sweep of Cal State Bakersfield with a pair of shutouts Tuesday at Lady Matador Field. Kathy Slaten pitched Northridge to a 4-0 win in the first game and saved Delanee Anderson’s 2-0 win in the second game.

“It wasn’t real exciting, was it?” CSUN Coach Gary Torgeson said. “We didn’t play with a good deal of inspiration. I think we’ll be a little more up this weekend.”

CSUN (32-6-1, 4-0) plays host to fourth-ranked Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Friday and sixth-ranked Chapman on Saturday.

But against Bakersfield (15-12, 3-7), the Lady Matadors didn’t have to get out of second gear.

Slaten, a three-time All-American with an 11-3-1 record this season, lost a bid for the fifth perfect game of her career when she surrendered two singles in the seventh inning of the first game. She finished with 11 strikeouts, including six in a row in one stretch.

In the second game, Slaten was summoned to relieve Anderson (12-1) with no outs in the seventh. Northridge held a 2-0 lead, but Bakersfield had runners on first and second.

The first hitter sacrificed the runners to second and third, and Slaten induced the next two hitters to fly out. Slaten earned a save; Anderson has now not given up an earned run in 88 innings.

“When you have people that come back and pull you out of a bind, you can’t lose,” Torgeson said. “Slaten did it for us today and so did Nancy Lucero.”

Lucero, a senior second baseman from Simi Valley High, broke her nose Friday in a household accident. But when Torgeson called on her to pinch-hit with runners on first and second in the fourth inning of Tuesday’s first game, Lucero responded with a single that loaded the bases.

CSUN catcher Jamie Gray followed Lucero’s hit with a ground ball through the left side of the infield. The hit should have driven in just one run, but Bakersfield left fielder Julie Sharp played it into a bases-clearing single when the ball rolled through her legs to the fence.

CSUN first baseman Kelly Winn had two singles and drove in both Lady Matador runs in the second game.

In the first inning, CSUN shortstop Lori Shelly drew a one-out walk and Beth Onestinghel followed with a sacrifice bunt. Winn hit a ground ball that Bakersfield shortstop Darlene Beardsley fielded but threw late to first base. Shelly never stopped running and scored from second.

Notes

Bakersfield, which started its softball program last season, could be a factor in this season’s CCAA race. The Roadrunners record (15-12 3-7) may not seem impressive, but it’s already a marked improvement over last season’s 10-21 overall and 1-19 conference record. . . . CSUN Coach Gary Torgeson on what it feels like to be No. 1 again: “The girls deserve to be there. Last season, every time the team was ranked No. 1, they got a little tight. I don’t see that this season.”