Fresno State Athletics
Fresno State
Stanford
No. 11 Softball Falls to No. 3 Stanford
4/3/2002 12:00:00 AM | Softball
April 2, 2002
STANFORD, Calif. - No. 11 Fresno State was unable to get the clutch hits and an uncharacteristic pitching performance doomed the Bulldogs' chance of avenging an earlier loss to the third-ranked Stanford Cardinal, who notched a 5-0 decision at the Boyd & Jill Smith Family Stadium.
The Bulldogs, who had four hits, left seven runners on base while Stanford, who scored five runs on eight hits, stranded three runners.
The Cardinal, who was playing just their eighth home game of the year, scored five runs off freshman right-hander Jamie Southern.
Southern, who gave up a season-high in hits (8), runs (5) and earned runs (4), lost her third straight start and was unable to reach the 20-win plateau as she fell to 19-6.
Walking one and striking out five Cardinal batters, Southern has been a victim of two one-run losses before being stung for a 5-0 loss in her last three starts. She entered game one of the non-conference twin bill with an average of 3.0 hits given up per game before Stanford rattled off eight hits this evening.
Stanford erupted for a three-run fourth inning and tacked two on in the fifth behind the pitching performance of Tori Nyberg, who improved to 18-3 after walking two and striking out four.
In the fourth, Southern gave up three consecutive singles before the Cardinal hit two sacrifice flies and had a RBI single. In the sixth, the Cardinal led off with two hits and a walk before scoring their first run on a throwing error by junior catcher Pam West and scoring their second run on another RBI single.
Fresno State threatened in three different frames. In the top of the fourth with two outs, Southern and freshman left fielder Julie Selbicky hit back-to-back singles before Nyberg induced West into a ground out. The Bulldogs wasted a one-out double hit by senior third baseman Lindsay Fossatti in the sixth. In the top of the seventh inning, Fresno State could not take advantage of a leadoff walk by Selbicky. With two outs, senior first baseman Vanessa Czarnecki reached safely on a fielding error by Cardinal first baseman Sarah Beeson. With runners on first and second, sophomore second baseman Pam Perez lined a single to right field but a pause and a stutter step by Selbicky caught up to her as she was thrown out at home.
