The Warriors came into this weeks doubleheader with a four-game winning-streak having swept all four games in their two doubleheaders against Cal State East Bay Pioneers on Thursday and Friday of last week.

The Warriors Softball Team split their home doubleheader against the Academy of Art Urban Knights last Friday, March 8th, 2019. We took the first game in this doubleheader with a final score of 3-0.

Kyndra Marzorini (freshman, Undeclared) helped the team tremendously with her solid pitching performance, pitching all 7 innings, posting a 2.52 ERA She only allowed 5 hits, no runs, and racked up 6 strikeouts. She also contributed at the plate by hitting a single that knocked in the first run of the game, making it 1-0 Warriors in the bottom of the first inning.

Marzorini expressed that “it feels good” to have pitched well and that she was “just doing my job.” She went on to say, “I really focus on hitting my spots…just focusing every pitch and not taking a pitch off.”

The game would’ve remained 1-0 until the bottom of the 4th inning, where Deja Guzman (junior, Child Development) hit a double that knocked in two runs in order to increase the lead to 3-0.

Guzman had a similar attitude to Marzorini, which was doing her part to help the team succeed. She said, “I’m just trying to do my job and score our runners from third and scoring position.”

With Marzorini continuing to pitch well and completing the shutout, the Warriors would come away with a win in the first game of the doubleheader. The Warriors would improve their record to 9-13 with this win and increase their winning streak to 5.

After a break in between, the second game of the doubleheader began.

The Warriors were the first team on the board with scoring in the bottom of the first inning and jumping ahead 1-0 over the Urban Knights. However, the Urban Knights responded by scoring in the very next inning making it 1-1.

Unfortunately for the Warriors, the Urban Knights went on to tack on another run in the top of the fifth inning, making it 2-1, while the Warriors struggled offensively and would not be able to score another run for the rest of the game.

Coach Jessica Ventoza, the Head Coach of the Softball Team, did recognize the hitting woes that played a huge role in their loss in the second game. Coach Ventoza said, “I think we could’ve done a better job at hitting for sure. We played pretty good defence and our pitchers did an excellent job, just hitting we had to come in and score those runners that we left on base.”

The Warriors would end up falling to Urban Knights with a final score of 2-1. With this loss, the Warriors would fall to 9-14 on the season.

In addition to her claim that they needed to improve their hitting in the series, Coach Ventoza claimed that next week, they would focus on situational hitting practice citing. She said, “we have to do a better job at that and put kids in situations where they’re gonna succeed…”

She added that “…we’ll just have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how to situationally hit better.”

The doubleheader against Academy of Art was mixed for the Warriors with winning one game and losing the other. However, the Warriors will have a full week to prepare for their next series in Cal State San Marcos for their four-games against the Cougars.