April 17, 2011

Box Score

Northridge, Calif. - Another rubber-game another victory for the Tigers as Pacific picked up a 5-1 win at Cal State Northridge on Sunday, April 17 to take the season series, 2-1. Pacific's victory moved their record to 27-14 overall and 6-3 in the conference while the Matadors fell to 15-26 and 3-6 in the Big West.

With the victory the Tigers secured at least a .500 or better finish to the regular season as Pacific moved to 13 games over .500 with 13 regular season games to play.

A day after being shut down at the plate by the Matadors' Mia Pagano, the Pacific offense adjusted as the Tigers tallied eight hits and five runs en route to their series clinching victory. Led in the middle of the order by junior Nicole Matson and sophomore Nikki Armagost, the Tigers jumped ahead of Cal State Northridge and never looked back, as they have done so many times throughout their 2011 campaign.

Posting a pair of runs in the first inning, the Tigers put together yet another two-out rally while taking advantage of a leadoff error that allowed Pacific a free baserunner. With one on and two outs in the inning, Matson was hit by an errant pitch, putting two runners aboard ahead of Armagost. Having gone 10 games without an RBI, the Big West's top run producer finally broke free of her mini slump with a double into the right-center gap to score both Matson and freshman Megan Foglesong.

The pair of RBI would not be her last of the game as she added a third six innings later as the Tigers added a pair of insurance runs in the top of the seventh. Armagost's third RBI of the game would come on a groundout to the left side of the infield. On the play, Foglesong beat the throw home from first, avoiding the tag at the plate with an acrobatic slide to cap the Tigers' scoring. She had reached earlier on a double to center following a single up the middle by senior Lindsey Pierce. The Tigers added a fourth run to their total prior to the RBI groundout when Matson singled up the middle to drive home Pierce.

For Matson, the RBI single was her second of the game as the junior first baseman drilled a single through the left side of the infield in the top of the third to give the Tigers' an early 3-0 lead. Matson's single scored sophomore Megan Hom after the top of Pacific's order posted back-to-back singles to leadoff the inning.

With the offense coming through against Pagano, Armagost did not need to be perfect in the circle but the sophomore was nearly unhittable anyways as she scattered five hits in seven innings of work. Throwing against the Matadors for the second consecutive day, Armagost gave up just one run, a solo home run to Mikayla Thielges in the bottom of the sixth while facing just one other jam to improve to 13-8 overall and 4-1 in conference action. Armagost struck out seven in the contest including picking up one of her seven to end the biggest threat of the day by the Matadors in the fourth. She added two more in the seventh to quell any thoughts of a repeat performance by the Matadors in the seventh when Cal State Northridge scored five runs to turn a blow out into a close contest.

At the plate the Tigers picked up mulit-hit games from both Pierce and Matson while six different starters recorded hits. On the other side the Matadors saw both Thiegles and Tracy Allen go 2-for-3 while Madeline Sale was the only other player to record a hit for Cal State Northridge.

Pacific will play its final non-conference regular season contest on Tuesday, April 19 when the No. 11 ranked Cardinal of Stanford make the trip to Bill Simoni Field for a single game. The game is scheduled for 4:00 pm between the two teams and is a make-up of an earlier contest that was rained out during the 2011 Stanford Invitational. Stanford's visit to Stockton, Calif. will be their first trip East to the Tigers since the 2002 season.