College Update: Sigman’s Mountaineers, Gadsby’s Bruins fall in regionals
The following are update on local athletes at the collegiate level.
Jackson Sigman (Glendale Community College, 2014) West Virginia baseball senior: It was a historical season for Sigman and the Mountaineers, though one that came to its end on Sunday in a 12-8 loss to Wake Forest.
“This team will probably go down in history maybe as one of the best ever for what we accomplished this year,” WVU coach Randy Mazey said in the postgame press conference. “I think our guys showed a lot of heart, a lot of tenacity and there are Mountaineer fans everywhere super proud of our team. We made a lot of Mountaineer baseball fans that weren’t Mountaineer baseball fans prior to this year. This is a statement about our program, where it’s going and the direction it’s headed. We’ve got us a baseball program that we can be super proud of. We have a great facility, great administration and great fan support. This is not the end. This is the beginning of a great baseball program.”
The loss came in the 2017 NCAA Tournament Winston-Salem Regional Final with the Mountaineers finishing their year at 36-26. It was the program’s 12th NCAA Championship appearance, but the first since 1996 and just the third in a regional final. The final game of the season was also the 62nd for WVU, which was a program record.
Along the way, Sigman was a workhorse out of the bullpen with a school-record 36 appearances, which is currently tied for third in all of NCAA Division I.
Sigman finished with a 6-4 record, a 4.94 earned-run average, a team-high 58 1/3 innings with 73 strikeouts to 23 walks.
Sigman’s best appearance might well have come in the Mountaineers’ last win of the season when they staved off elimination earlier Sunday with an 8-5 win over Maryland. Sigman entered the game with his team trailing and got the victory after 4 2/3 innings of relief in which he allowed four hits and one run while striking out seven against no walks.
“He was really good early in the season. Then he hit a spell in which he gave up more home runs. He went back in the bullpen and made a mechanical adjustment of all things. If you make a mechanical adjustment, with sidearmers it can really make a difference even if it’s just one adjustment. So he did that and he got hot,” Mazey said in the postgame press conference. “He went back to that same adjustment and today he was really good again.”
Brian Gadsby (Crescenta Valley, 2015) UCLA baseball sophomore: It was a nailbiting and agonizing ending for the UCLA baseball program in the regional round of the NCAA Tournament.
The Bruins (30-27, 19-11 in Pac 12 Conference) lost Friday to Texas, 3-2, at Long Beach’s Blair Field and then lost again Saturday to San Diego State by an identical 3-2 tally, but in 13 innings.
Gadsby, a former two-time All-Area Baseball Player of the Year and James H. Jenkins Boys’ Athlete of the Year, made 29 appearances for the Bruins, all of them out of the bullpen. However, he did not appear in the NCAA Regionals.
His last appearance of the season was in a 12-4 loss to UC Irvine on May 23. The right-hander pitched 2 1/3 innings with six hits, two runs and a walk allowed. He faced former Crescenta Valley High teammate Adrian Damla in the bottom of the fifth inning and induced an inning-ending popout to shortstop.
Gadsby allowed runs in each of his last two appearances but previously recorded 10 consecutive appearances without a run allowed.
For the season, he posted a 3-4 record with one save and a 5.09 earned-run average. In 35 1/3 innings, Gadsby allowed 20 runs on 48 hits and 14 walks with 17 strikeouts.
Lori Berberian (Clark Magnet, 2016) Occidental College water polo freshman: Berberian, a former All-Pacific League and All-Area pick for Glendale High, got immediate playing time for the Tigers.
Berberian’s debut season saw her collect 19 goals, 15 steals and six assists.
Oxy struggled to a 7-22 campaign with a 2-10 mark in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Occidental’s final victory of the season occurred on April 21 with an 18-4 win over Caltech in which Berberian had a match-high four steals along with a goal and an assist.
Melanie Abzun (Crescenta Valley, 2015) College of the Canyons softball sophomore: Abzun was an offensive standout in her final season with the Cougars, garnering All-Western State Conference East Division second-team honors in the process.
Playing in all 44 games for COC, Abzun’s 66 hits, 15 doubles, nine home runs and 21 stolen bases were team-highs. Abzun hit .426 with 51 runs, 40 runs batted in, 20 walks and a .489 on-base percentage.
COC tied for second in the WSC East and finished the season at 30-13-1. The Cougars began the postseason with a two-game sweep of Southwestern in the California Community College Athletic Assn. Southern California Regionals. Alas, in the super regional round, COC lost two straight to Cypress and Santiago Canyon. Abzun went a combined six for 13 in the four postseason games with three walks, five runs, six RBI, three stolen bases and three home runs. Abzun hit safely in 14 of her final 15 games, including a six-game winning streak to end the season.
Twitter: @TCNGrantGordon
