March 30, 2011
Box Score
ROHNERT PARK, Calif. - Erika Quint (Sr., Silverdale/Central Kitsap) pitched a one-hit shutout in winning the opener 10-0, but the Vikings managed just one hit and were blanked 8-0 in the nightcap as Western Washington University split a non-conference softball doubleheader with Sonoma State University on Wednesday at Seawolf Field.
Both games went just five innings because of the eight-run mercy rule.
The Vikings, ranked No.6 in this week's National Fastpitch Coaches Association/NCAA Division II Top 25 Poll and leading the Great Northwest Athletic Conference standings, are 21-4. Sonoma State, which was seeing its first action in 17 days and is second in the California Collegiate Athletic Association, is 19-10.
In game one, Quint allowed just a leadoff single in the bottom of the fifth inning, improving to 15-0. She struck out nine and walked one, retiring 15 of 17 batters faced, for her sixth shutout of the season.
Quint has given up just two runs in her last 32-2/3 innings, that a two-run homer in the first inning of Tuesday's 13-5 win over Cal State Monterey Bay. She has a 1.11 earned run average with 141 strikeouts in 100-2/3 innings pitched.
Western broke a scoreless tie with four runs in the fourth and scored six more in the fifth, its 13 hits tying a season-high for the second time in two days.
Kelli Baumgartner (Sr., Silverdale/Central Kitsap) drove in three runs for the Vikings with a two-run single in the fourth and had a run-scoring single in the fifth. Michelle Wrigley (Sr., Bothell/Inglemoor) singled across two runs in the fifth.
Baumgartner and Wrigley each had two hits for Western as did Krista Bickar (Jr., Hoquiam), Jackie Rothenberger (So., Coquitlam, B.C./Gleneagle Secondary) and Stephanie Fox (Jr., Sammamish/Eastlake).
In game two, the Vikings got just one hit off Sonoma State pitcher Samantha Lipperd (12-3, 0.65 ERA), that a leadoff double by Bickar in the second. Lipperd struck out 10 and walked three in posting her eighth shutout of the year, upping her season totals to 147 strikeouts in 97 innings.
The Seawolves scored three runs in both the first and second innings and got two more in the fifth off three Western pitchers.
The Vikings compete in the Cal State Stanislaus Tournament of Champions on Friday through Sunday at Turlock, Calif.
