49ers
win ten in a row, make NCAA regionals
By Oscar Montealegre
On-line Forty-Niner
 The
Long Beach State 49er softball team finished
its regular season campaign with a dominating
6-1 victory over Cal State Northridge Matadors
last Saturday afternoon earning them a berth
in the NCAA playoffs.
As of late the 49er softball team has been
on a hot streak that has catapulted them
to the NCAA playoffs. Out of the last 22
games they have won 19, including ten in
a row. This will be 49er softball‘s first
NCAA playoff appearance since the 2000 season.
The 49ers ended their season with a 29-17
record and a 17-3 mark in Big West competition.
With this record they were rewarded a No.5
seed in the regional bracket of post season
play.
Including this season, this will be the
14th time the 49er softball team will be
competing in the regional playoffs. The
49ers will play the No.4 seed Fresno State
Bulldogs. It seems tradition that Long Beach
State‘s softball team has to confront Fresno
State in regional playoffs, competing against
Fresno State in 1986, ’96 and ’97.
Fresno State is the selected site of this
year‘s regional playoffs. UCLA earned the
No.1 seed and Georgia and Michigan State
were given the No.2 and No.3 seed. Therefore
if Long Beach State defeats Fresno State
they will face the difficult task of defeating
UCLA, assuming UCLA defeats No.8 seed Colgate.
In the last six games, Long Beach massacred
Utah State 14-0, 16-2 and 9-0. Then they
swept Cal State Northridge in three games
with results of 1-0, 3-1 and a dominating
6-1 mark.
Meredith Cervenka earned her 15th win of
the season and her 13th in a row, allowing
just one run on four hits, and five strikeouts.
In addition, she went 1-3 at the plate with
two RBI.
However, her scoreless inning streaked was
snapped at 36. Northridge’s Sondra Milchiker
hit a solo home run off Cervenka in the
bottom of the fifth inning breaking her
amazing scoreless inning streak.
Lauren Johnson also had a huge impact on
the game by going 3-4 with two runs and
one RBI. Burdick also layed down a pivotal
bunt that moved Burdick from first to second.
And two batters later Roxanne Staniorski
hit a sacrifice fly that would score Burdick,
to tie the score 1-1.
With the score 2-1, in Long Beach’s favor,
Cervenka hit a single that would drive in
Thorp and Farnworth to make it 4-1. The
49ers would add on two more runs to close
out the scoring and walk away with the 6-1
victory.
Long Beach State will face Fresno State
on Thursday, May15. Tickets to the game
are available thru the Fresno State box
office.
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