BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE : Mowl Finally Gets It Right in Final Game of the Season

Practice may make perfect, but it isn’t a prerequisite to hitting.

The Matadors’ Scott Mowl proved that against Minnesota.

In the fourth inning, Mowl stepped to the plate as a right-handed hitter and hit Andy Hammerschmidt’s first pitch for a single.

His previous 165 at-bats this season had all been from the left side.

A senior transfer from Cal State Los Angeles, Mowl was a switch-hitter until last fall when Stan Sanchez, Northridge’s batting instructor, convinced him to concentrate on hitting as a lefty.

“I had never faced a left-hander left-handed,” said Mowl, who is naturally a right-handed hitter. “So I had to learn as the season went on to hit lefties.”

Before Sunday’s game, Sanchez again approached Mowl. Only this time he asked how Mowl felt about switching back to the right side.

“I told him I was pumped,” Mowl said. “I’d been waiting all year for it.”

Yvonne Sullivan earned a Northridge souvenir the hard way.

The Wichita woman was struck between the eyes by a foul ball off the bat of Scott Richardson on Saturday during the Matadors’ game against Oklahoma State.

Sullivan received medical attention, but she was back at Eck Stadium-Tyler Field on Sunday, with a baseball signed by the Northridge team in hand.

With two hits in four at-bats in his final game, Richardson won the Northridge batting title with a .342 average. Richardson trailed Greg Shockey going into the Minnesota game, but Shockey was hitless in five at-bats, dropping his average eight points to .338.

Shockey, who pulled a quadriceps in the second inning on a play in which he threw out a runner attempting to go from first to third on a hit, left the game after grounding into a double play in the eighth inning.