With a doubleheader sweep over visiting Pomona-Pitzer Colleges on Sunday at the Softball "Field of Dreams," the University of Redlands Bulldog softball team clinched a share of the 2010 Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Championship, extending its title run to six consecutive seasons. Redlands secured a 4-0 victory in the first game and then cruised to a 10-2 win in the second tilt.
Prior to the first pitch, the Bulldogs honored its seniors with a short pregame presentation.
Behind senior Olivia Ellis' (Colfax, CA) stellar pitching, the Maroon and Gray held onto an early lead to capture the 4-0 victory in the first game. In seven innings of work, she gave up just one hit while fanning five batters. She improves to 17-4 on the season.
Redlands scored two runs in the first inning and never relinquished control of the game. Senior center fielder Kayla Peterson (San Jose, CA) and sophomore third baseman Lindsay Henry (Lake Elsinore, CA) both crossed home plate on wild pitches to initiate the Bulldog offense.
In the bottom of the third inning, Henry provided an RBI-double to plate freshman left fielder Kirsten Milliner (Torrance, CA) from first base.
The Bulldogs gained one more run in the bottom of the sixth as senior designated player Amanda Doeppel (Monrovia, CA) singled to center field and eventually scored on an error.
During the nightcap, Redlands took advantage of four Sagehen errors and pounded out 11 hits en route to the 10-2 win.
After the Maroon and Gray scored three runs on three hits in the third inning, neither team posted any runs until the top of sixth when Pomona-Pitzer gained a two-run shot from junior catcher Alyssa Corley (Colorado Springs, CO).
With a 3-2 lead, the Bulldogs quickly answered by erupting for seven more runs in the bottom of the stanza to garner the solid victory.
With runners on first and second, sophomore second baseman Molly Duran (Lake Elsinore, CA) belted a two-RBI-double to left center. Sophomore short stop Kai Masutani (Honolulu, HI) kept the offense rolling with her single up the middle to score Duran. After Masutani came home on back-to-back errors by the Sagehens, Henry crushed her fifth home run of the season, plating Milliner, who had singled to third base. Doeppel then provided the third consecutive single of the inning to score senior catcher Nicky Neumann (Fremont, CA), putting Redlands up by eight runs.
Sophomore hurler Breanna Ruelas (Brawley, CA) threw a complete game for the Bulldogs, giving up four hits while sitting down seven batters. She earned her 11th win of the season.
With today's victories, Redlands (30-10, 21-3 SCIAC) now sits atop the conference standings with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, sharing the SCIAC title with the Athenas. However, CMS wins the head-to-head tiebreaker and serves as host and top seed of the 2010 SCIAC Postseason Tournament, which begins Friday. As the No. 2 seed, the Bulldogs face No. 3 seed University of La Verne at a time to be announced.
