The UCSB softball team ran into a tough pitcher in Long Beach State ace Shannon Haddad and was held to one hit in a 9-0 loss at Campus Diamond on Sunday. The game was called after five innings.
The loss knocked the Gauchos (10-4) out of a first-place tie with The Beach, who won the series 2-1 and improved to 11-4 (21-18 overall).
The Beach piled up 12 hits. Mikayla Ceballos had five RBIs with a triple and a double, while Makayla Medellin also had two hits with three RBIs.
Ashley Donaldson had UCSB’s only hit and it came in the first inning
The Beach scored four runs off UCSB starter Ava Bradford in the first inning. Camryn Snyder was brought in with two outs and allowed two runs on two hits in 1.2 innings.
The Beach offense rapped out for hits and scored three runs off Malaya Johnson
Ilona Sullivan pitched 1.2 innings of relief and kept The Beach offense at bay. She allowed two hits and no runs.
“Tough day for us, we didn’t play well right from the get-go,” said UCSB coach Jo Evans. “You have to have your pitchers in the circle give you some outs and set the tempo for the game. We got hit hard, but I thought Sully came in at the end and gave us the most quality innings. She threw well and was staying ahead of hitters.
“But Long Beach, tip your cap to them, they are a really goodballclub and rebounded from a game one loss. We didn’t do a good job of making adjustments at the plate. We didn’t take care of the ball on defense. Overall, I didn’t see that confidence or our players playing with some of that swagger.”
The Gauchos (23-13 overall) next travel to Cal State Fullerton for a three-game series. The Titans are tied for first with Long Beach.
“It doesn’t get easier for us, that’s for sure, especially on the road,” said Evans. “They have such a great history in their program and have strong recruiting classes every year and they are going to give us all we can handle.
“This will be a really good week for us. We’ll lick our wounds a little bit, we’re not used to losing but today was clearly a punch in the gut. We will learn a lot about our ball club and how we are going to handle ourselves at practice. I’m still excited about our team. We have won three of our five series and I expect us to continue to do that.”
Despite the loss, Evans raved about the big-game atmosphere at Campus Diamond
“I want to take a moment to thank the crowd for coming out,” she said. “I thought we had a really good crowd today, and I wish we played better in front of them.”