Big West Softball: Long Beach State wins Conference Title

The 49er softball team wrapped up the conference this past weekend with a win winning the series against Pacific to hold off UCSB's furious late season rally.  They will be facing Syracuse in the Arizona Regionals of the NCAA Tournament on May 18th.  Here's a quick look as to how they got here:

After getting off to a reasonable 6-5 start, the 49ers went through a 6-13 slump to finish non-conference play.  Dropping the series against UCSB, LBSU rattled off a 15-3 record against the rest of the Big West to clinch the title.  Ashlynn Booker led the 49ers with 6 home runs while Hannah De Gaetano tore through the competition with a team leading .337 BA and 29 RBI's.

Erin Jones-Wesley and Taylor Petty were dominant in their pitching roles.  Jones-Wesley led the team in appearances and starts (37 appearances and 29 starts) and went 20-12 with a 1.97 ERA, while conference-specialist Petty kept the same consistency with 13 appearances, 12 starts going 8-2 and a team leading 1.14 ERA.

So what will happen in the NCAA regionals?  Taking a quick scouting report, the Orange have a much more potent offense than the 49ers, and the pitching is even for both teams.  Therefore, the 49ers will have to rely on their pitching to shut down Syracuse tomorrow.  As I have mentioned before, LBSU has history on their side: head to head in 3 appearances, Long Beach has all three wins.  Can they keep that streak up?  We'll find out soon enough.