TURLOCK, Calif. -- After losing 6-4 in 10 innings to Central Washington earlier in the day, the Sonoma State softball team later rebounded with a 4-2 victory over Western Oregon to finish the 2017 Tournament of Champions, presented by the City of Turlock and hosted by Stanislaus State with a 4-2 record.
The Seawolves (28-10) have now won 19 of their last 22 games and will return to conference play next week at home against San Francisco State on Friday and Saturday.
To open play on Sunday, Sonoma State's
Teresa Danenberg and Central Washington's Kiana Wood found themselves in an epic pitchers duel that went into extra innings. The Wildcats drew first blood in the third inning before
Jordann White lifted a sacrifice fly to center field in the fourth inning to score
Jenny Collazo for the equalizer.
Madison Barto batted home
Alyssa Cuffia an inning later to put the Seawolves on top 2-1. Central Washington made things interesting in the sixth when they scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly of their own to make it 2-2 and neither team could get the go-ahead run across in regulation.
It wasn't until the ninth inning when CWU took a 4-2 lead on a two-run home run. In SSU's half of the ninth,
Lindsey Calcany Blair had a sacrifice fly to score Collazo before Cuffia delivered the game-tying double scoring
Malory Masajlo from first base to knot things up again, but this time at 4-4. In the 10th inning, the Wildcats plated two more runs to take a 6-4 lead, but the Seawolves were put down in order in their half of the tenth, ending the game.
Cuffia ended the game going 3 for 4 with three doubles, an RBI and a run scored to lead the offense. Danenberg (5-3) suffered the loss in the pitching circle, giving up six runs (four earned) on 12 hits and one walk, striking out seven.
In Sonoma's final game of the tournament -- and its 11th game in six days --
Sarah Langley had three RBI, including the go-ahead two-run single in the third inning and she also scored a run to lift the Seawolves to a 4-2 win over Western Oregon. She also brought home SSU's first run of the game in the first inning on a single that scored Collazo. White supplied the fourth and final run of the game for Sonoma State in the fifth inning on a single that scored Langley.
Brielle Vidmar (11-4) got the win in relief of
Brigid Ruiz, who started the game and went the first two and two-thirds innings, giving up the two runs to WOU. Vidmar allowed just three hits, striking out four in her four and a thirds innings of work, keeping the Wolves off the scoreboard the rest of the way.
