Northridge Just Tickled After Completing Sweep

Jason Shanahan looks like he just ate a pile of barbecued ribs.

Loaded with sauce.

And then forgot to wipe his face.

“It’s a trendy deal that you stick with when you get hot,” he said with a grin.

Make that torrid. Shanahan belted two homers Sunday to lead Cal State Northridge to a 5-4 nonconference victory over UC Santa Barbara at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium, capping a three-game weekend sweep for the Matadors.

This stuff of scruff is definitely in vogue. Catcher Josh Smaler started a similar beard a week ago and has since hit safely in four consecutive games.

What’s more, Sunday’s other long-ball hero, right fielder Kevin Howard, also was sporting a couple of days’ growth.

But Howard’s two-run homer in the eighth was a razor-sharp rip--and he ought to know, since he watched every second of the ball’s 400-foot flight over the left-field fence.

“About time,” Howard said.

Howard, the clean-up hitter, hadn’t homered since Feb. 13. Yet his shot erased a 4-3 Santa Barbara margin and gave Northridge the lead for the first time--and for good.

Right-hander Aaron D’Aoust (3-0) pitched three innings of scoreless relief to earn his second victory in a week.

Shanahan single-handedly kept the Matadors (9-9) in the game offensively. When Santa Barbara (4-16) jumped to a 1-0 lead in the fourth, he homered in the top of the fifth. When the Gauchos took a 3-1 lead in the sixth, he hit a two-run homer in the seventh to tie it again.

“That’s exactly what we need out of Shanahan and Howard,” Coach Bill Kernen said. “It definitely came at the right time.”

And the Matadors, who have won five of the past six games, reached the .500 plateau for the first time since Feb. 19.

Santa Barbara had the potential tying run on second base in both the eighth and ninth, but D’Aoust emerged unscathed. He hasn’t allowed a run over the past 11 1/3 innings to reduce his earned-run average to a team-low 1.72.

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Cal State Northridge (12-2) swept a nonconference softball doubleheader from UC Santa Barbara in what was a double shutout. Kathy Blake pitched a three-hitter in the 3-0 opener and Amy Windmiller held the host Gauchos to one hit in the 10-0 second game.

Blake (4-1) had one strikeout and one walk. Windmiller (5-1) struck out six batters and did not give up a walk.

Tamara Ivie and Shannon Jones led the Northridge offense which had a combined total of 20 hits.

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Cal Lutheran will play Greensboro (N.C.) in a NCAA Division III sectional semifinal at the University of St. Thomas (Minn.) on Friday.

As the No. 1-ranked team in the West Region, Cal Lutheran made a vain bid to play host to the four-team sectional at Oxnard High. Its home court does not meet Division III specifications for playoff sites.