Cal State Fullerton recaptures Big West title
Titans win series for crown against '21 champ LBSU
FULLERTON » The nightmare that dogged Cal State Fullerton's softball team for a year finally disappeared Saturday.
In 2021, the Titans had the Big West title almost in hand before going to Long Beach State and being swept in the season's final series to give the Beach the title and leave the Titans gasping for words.
The situation was almost identical in 2022. Hawaii swept the Titans last weekend and Fullerton went into this weekend tied with Long Beach and needing two wins to win the crown. They got it, as Daisy Munoz, the hero of Friday's 8-6 win, stepped up with a solo home run with two outs in the sixth for a 2-1 win.
The Titans won four straight Big West titles (2016-19) and was kept from a title in 2020 when the season was cancelled because of the pandemic. The Beach grabbed the 2021 title, so some sort of order in Fullerton's perspective has been restored.
The Beach won the second game of the doubleheader, 8-3, behind Maddy Ruffin and Mikayla Ceballos. Fullerton finishes the regular season 36-20 and will find out its place in the NCAA tournament Sunday evening. Long Beach finishes 29-22.
Munoz had two strikes on her in the seventh and said she was just looking for a way to get on base.
“Anyway to get on base, a ground-ball single,'' she said. “I got a fastball inside and just turned on it.''
Munoz said the entire team knew what was at stake this season and knew who would be there waiting at the end.
“We knew what was coming up,'' she said. “There was vengeance there, but we needed to stay within ourselves.
“I said after last season that we would never miss the postseason again.
I wouldn't let the team down.''
The first game was a pitchers' duel between Fullerton's Myka Sutherlin and Long Beach's Sophia Fernandez. Fullerton got a run in the third, Megan Delgadillo singling to left and promptly stealing second and third to boost her season total to 46. She set a new single-season school record of 47 in the second game Saturday.
Hannah Becerra hit a deep fly to left to score Delgadillo.
Long Beach didn't get a hit until the fifth. Jacquelyn Bickar was hit by a pitch and then stole second. With two outs, Marissa Caballero lined a soft single to center to tie the score.
Fernandez had retired 10 of the last 11 batters to get to the sixth with two out when Munoz came to the plate. She turned on an inside fastball to deposit the game-winning hit in left, her 12th of the season.
Sutherlin retired the Beach in order in the seventh for the win.
Long Beach came into the series looking to duplicate 2021's season, when it came into the final series against Fullerton needing three wins and got them behind the pitching of Kelli White.
The Beach was expected to contend this year and did, but with only a small nucleus of returning players from 2001 — just five seniors, and only one returning pitcher, 2021 Big West freshman of the year Shannon Haddad, who was injured and did not play.
Head coach Kim Sowder lamented the breaks of the game. The Beach hit a lot of line drives in both games that found Titans gloves and had several defensive miscues Friday.
“It's a game of inches, for sure,'' Sowder said. “It can be a hard game to understand at times. We hit shot after shot Friday. And we made mistakes that Fullerton was able to cash in.
“We had a tough preseason, and I was worried that they had lost confidence, but they got better as the season went on and gave us everything they could.”