On Friday April 1, the California Lutheran University Regals Softball took on the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens at Hutton Field. 

The Regals came into this matchup with a 7-15 overall record on the year and a 1-5 record in conference and the Sagehens came in with a 9-16 overall record and a 1-5 record in conference. The Sagehens won the first game of this series 13-3.

“I think we fell behind early and it’s always tough chasing runs. We really didn’t answer right away, it took us a couple innings to get back into it. I think we were being a little cautious and not really trusting ourselves and sometimes even the opposite of that, forcing things, instead of really letting the game come to you,” said Assistant Coach John Barry.

Senior pitcher Taryn Faull and the Regals defense came out and shut down the Sagehens in the first inning with a scoreless top half.

“Her inside pitch was working really well along with her changeup. I think that it was easy to go hard in on them and then get them with the changeup right after,” First-year catcher Hanna Booth said.

This wouldn’t last long though as Pomona-Pitzer came out in the second inning with a two-run double to put them on the board. The Sagehens would also tack on another three runs in the top of the fourth inning. 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Regals started off with a double from sophomore infielder Emily Blank followed by a single from sophomore outfielder Regan Laubscher, that moved Blank to third base. The Regals were then finally on the board after a single from junior infielder Natalie Luna that scored Blank. 

“In that last inning I made an error so it felt good to pick up myself and my team as well. I think we got a little bit of momentum in that inning to score a little more runs,” Luna said. 

The Regals went on to score one more run in the bottom of the fourth on a sacrifice fly from senior utility player Mia Onesto that brought home Laubscher. This concluded the scoring for the Regals. 

“Their pitcher got us really good by working with her count and she would maximize on what we couldn’t do. So she would throw us out a lot and then bust us in for the strike,” Booth said.

Pomona-Pitzer would then go to score two runs in the fifth, and six more in the sixth inning to complete the game.. 

In a game like this, it might seem easy to look at the negatives, but the Regals coaching staff was able to find some positives about their performance. 

“The only real positive spin I can find is that it’s one game so we gotta put this game behind us. We’ve played probably the toughest teams that we’re gonna play in the first half of the season, so now it’s time to get on a roll starting tomorrow and just kind of put this game behind us. This one just kind of got away from us a little bit. We gotta learn how to deal with that a little better and just keep the games close. But defensively we were fairly sound,” Coach Barry said. 

The Regals have another game next week against the University of Redlands.