Northridge Softball Split Has an Added Dimension

Before the 1987 softball season, the NCAA decided to move the pitcher’s mound back three feet, due largely to a widespread lack of offense. Cal State Northridge Coach Gary Torgeson said the decision would not affect his strong-armed staff.

But in the first game of the Lady Matadors’ season-opening double-header against Cal Poly Pomona on Saturday, starting pitcher Delanee Anderson tired in the top of the seventh inning and the Broncos came back from a one-run deficit to win, 3-1. CSUN won the second game, 1-0.

Anderson had allowed only four hits until the seventh inning of the opener when Pomona, the No. 4-ranked team in Division I, exploded for five hits and all of its runs. The key hit came after a double by Margaret Ziegler and Alison Stowell’s infield single. Betsy Burr drilled a triple down the right-field line, scoring Ziegler and Stowell. Burr then scored when Kandi Burke singled up the middle.

“I don’t think the extra three feet mattered,” said Anderson, who finished 15-3 last season. “I guess I did get a little more tired, but they were just hitting the ball well.”

Describing her game-winning hit, Burr said: “The pitch was right there at my waist. I just went with the ball and put it down the line. The pitcher hung the pitch a little. She threw well for most of the game, but you could tell she was getting tired.”

Meanwhile, Pomona starting pitcher Rhonda Wheatley was gaining momentum. CSUN managed to score a run in the third when two-time All-American center fielder Barbara Jordan reached first on an error, stole second, advanced to third on a ground ball by Beth Onestinghell and scored on Lisa Erickson’s single to center. From that point, though, Wheatley gave up only two hits.

“I was throwing really well considering it was my first game,” she said. “They were making contact and forcing us to make the plays. And, as it turned out, we did.”

Wheatley, who last year started 48 of her team’s 56 games and completed 44, said the added distance from the mound to home plate had little effect on her. “I seem to get stronger the more I have to work,” she said. “Once I get in a groove, I do well.”

In the second game, however, Wheatley popped out of her groove long enough for the Lady Matadors to gain a split.

Pomona second-game starter Lori Thompson kept the CSUN hitters off balance, allowing only one hit through the first six innings. But when Onestinghell led off the bottom of the seventh with a double over Stowell’s head in center field, Pomona Coach Carol Spanks pulled Thompson in favor of Wheatley.

After Erickson sacrificed Onestinghell to third, Kelly Winn drove in the game-winning run with a single to left.

Freshman pitcher Debbie Dickman limited the Broncos to five hits in her first college game. “I felt in control, even though this was my first game,” she said. “I just go out and pitch, but it was a big thrill--very exciting.”

More so for Torgeson, who after watching his team collapse in the first game looked as if he wanted to crawl under the dugout. He was born anew after the second.

“I’m just glad we won,” he said. “Actually, we could’ve won both games. But, we learned from the first game and came back. That’s encouraging against a Division I team like Cal Poly Pomona.