CSUB softball falls to UCR in finale
By the bottom of the sixth inning Saturday afternoon, the Cal State Bakersfield softball team looked poised to end its season on the lowest note possible, on the losing end of a combined no-hitter by UC Riverside.
Pitcher Chrys Hildebrand had a perfect game broken up on a last-out home run Friday, but she and Katie Barbarick were locking down the Roadrunners nearly as easily Saturday. The Highlanders’ 3-0 lead felt practically insurmountable.
And even after a Cydney Curran double off Barbarick to break the cold spell, UCR doubled its advantage with three runs on three hits in the seventh to seal a season-ending win.
“It’s tough to lose that way,” CSUB coach Crissy Buck-Ziegler said, “it’s tough to lose at home at any time, but especially the end of the year.”
But in their final game, each of the three outgoing CSUB seniors — Cieana Curran, Cydney Curran and Kayla Tadewosian — reached base late, as the Roadrunners put up their most sustained offensive effort of the weekend, reducing the final margin to 6-2.
“It’s just fun to watch seniors do their job on their last college atbat,” Buck-Ziegler said, “that they could walk away having that high note, even if it is a season of lows.”
Maya Williams, Tadewosian and Samantha Martinez converted three straight singles before a Maya Molina-Villareal sacrifice fly scored CSUB’s first run. The Roadrunners loaded the bases for pinch-hitter Tayler Thomas, scoring on an error in the process, but Thomas grounded into a double play in her third career plate appearance.
Meanwhile, the Highlanders supported Hildebrand and Barbarick’s effort with strong hitting from outfielders Haylee Kela and Nadia Witt, who were each 2-for-4 with two RBIs.
CSUB pitchers Reina Castillo and Kirsten Martinez stranded 12 Highlanders, working their way out of jams in the middle innings, but the Roadrunner offense couldn’t keep pace.
CSUB finished 8-37 (3-24 Big West), dropping 15 straight games after taking a road series at UC Santa Barbara April 9. With just two returning players with a full season of NCAA experience, the young Roadrunners frequently looked overmatched in their first Big West Conference season.
Hildebrand was the latest pitcher to vex the CSUB lineup, starting the day with three straight strikeouts. She didn’t stay perfect for long, walking Shaylene
Fuimaono to open the second inning, but by then UCR had already gone up 1-0 on a two-RBI single from Witt.
The Highlanders, who scored 22 runs in two games Friday, started to come alive on offense in the fourth inning with Ally Troche’s first triple of the year, followed by walk and an error that doubled UCR’s lead. But Castillo managed three straightforward outs in a row to halt the damage.
Both starters threw just four innings and were replaced by relievers who had more trouble. Kirsten Martinez gave up an RBI single to Lauryn Garewal in the sixth, then three more runs in the seventh on well-timed hits by Witt and Kela.
Barbarick looked poised to continue Hildebrand’s success, but Cydney Curran, in her 528th and final at-bat at CSUB, doubled to the wall in left-center field. That set the stage for the last-gasp rally an inning later, which also featured her sister Cieana, a graduate transfer from Hawaii Pacific.
“That family’s very special,” BuckZiegler said, “(in) just the impact that they’ve shown for our program, of what it means to be part of a family.”
Buck-Ziegler said her team is already developing some young leaders in Fuimaono and Williams, but that’s just the start of what the Roadrunners will need in order to turn things around.
“We gotta add some pieces though,” she said, “to really solidify this thing, to make us a competitor in the Big West.”