Northridge Sweeps Riverside in Softball

The way Gary Torgeson looks at it, his team is finally rocking and rolling. For a while there, it was just rocking.

It’s not that the Cal State Northridge women’s softball team had fallen in the dumper this season. The Lady Matadors just weren’t beating up their competition the way they had in past years. Mostly it was CSUN’s pitching that had shown signs of vulnerability.

But against visiting UC Riverside on Saturday, two CSUN pitchers shut down and shut out the Highlanders in both games of a doubleheader, leading the Lady Matadors to 4-0 and 3-0 wins.

“All four of our pitchers are ready to go now,” Torgeson said. “I’m excited because we found another pitcher who can do the job.”

That fourth pitcher the coach referred to is freshman Tracey Fox, who limited the Highlanders to three hits in the second game, matching pitcher Debbie Dickman’s three-hit shutout in the first game.

Before Saturday’s start, Fox’s first in college, the freshman had pitched 13 innings of relief, had won one game and impressed CSUN coaches with an 0.53 earned-run average. Riverside Coach Doug Urda said he had never seen Fox pitch and didn’t know what to expect from the left-hander. Afterward, he said he had seen too much of her.

“The pitching staff is coming together,” Torgeson said. “And this team is hitting better than any team I’ve ever had here.”

Lady Matador second baseman Kim Bernstein was 2 for 2 in the first game with a run batted in and a run scored. In the second game, she was 3 for 3, including a triple. She improved her batting average to .457. Right fielder Priscilla Rouse, who collected five hits against Cal State Bakersfield earlier this week, continued her hot hitting with two doubles against Riverside.

CSUN improved to 14-5, 7-1 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assn. Riverside is 7-12 and 1-7.