March 5, 2008
Box Score
Stockton, Calif. - Behind another dominant effort from junior Chelsea Engle (Folsom, Calif.) the Pacific softball team powered their way past the visiting Boston College Eagles, 6-0, on Wednesday, March 5. The win marked the third straight win for the Tigers as they improved to 9-11 on the year while the Eagles fell to 7-10 overall.
Continuing where she left off from at the Worth Invitational last week, Engle came out at home and held Boston College in check for six scoreless innings to pick up her fourth straight victory to move to 7-4 on the year. Engle showed flashed her dominance throughout her outing picking up seven strikeout in her six innings.
More impressively, Engle held the Eagles without a hit for the first five innings of play before relinquishing her only blemish of the game in the sixth inning on a line drive shot hit off her glove and midsection by Amanda Booth. The Eagles would pick up just one more hit in the game, a single up the middle off of reliever Heidi Helberg (Brentwood, Calif.) who closed out the game in the seventh inning for the Tigers.
Engle's day was not without some theatrics as she was forced to pitch out of a one out, runners on second and third, jam in the third caused by back-to-back opening walks to start the inning. Engle walked four in the contest, but pitched her way out of trouble in the third to preserve her shutout.
With Engle controlling the Eagles' bats, Pacific put up all the offense they would need in the third inning, plating five run on five hits while sending 12 batters to the plate. Leadoff hits by freshman Lindsey Pierce (Camarillo, Calif.) and junior Casey Goldsand (Scottsdale, Ariz.) got the inning started for Pacific.
After junior Lauren Weyman (Carlsbad, Calif.) sacrificed herself to move the runners into scoring position, sophomore Kellee Wilson (Tracy, Calif.) came drove home Pacific's first three runs of the ballgame, blasting her fifth homerun of the season over the left-centerfield fence. The three runs marked her 19th, 20th, and 21st RBIs of the season.
With a three run cushion, the hits continued in the inning as freshman Nicole Matson (Castaic, Calif.) roped a single up the middle and then came around to score on an RBI double into the gap in right-center by senior Alyce Jorgensen (Los Altos, Calif.). Jorgensen would score the Tigers' fifth run of the inning on an error by the Eagles' shortstop to close out the inning.
Pacific would tack on a sixth insurance run in the fifth inning as Matson took advantage of her fifth hit by pitch to reach base safely to begin the inning. After a single by junior Briana Santos (Garden Grove, Calif.) moved Matson to third, the Tigers would walk their way to a sixth run on a wild pitch to cap the day's scoring.
The Tigers finished the day with seven hits in the contest despite no Tiger producing more than one hit. Allison Gage was tagged with the loss in the contest to fall to 3-7 on the season for Boston College as she gave up five runs and six hits in 2.1 innings of work.
Pacific will be back in action on Friday, March 7, in Tempe, Ariz. as they travel to Arizona State to take part in the Diamond Devil Invitational. The Tigers will take on San Diego to begin the tournament at 9:00 am.
