March 21, 2004
Buffalo Box Score
UC Riverside Box Score
SAN DIEGO - When Aztec softball first baseman Lacey Craft (Valley Center, Calif.) squeezed the ball, finishing off a ground-ball double play and the Buffalo Bulls for an Aztec 6-0 victory on Sunday, it gave head coach Kathy Van Wyk her 254th career victory, more wins than any SDSU softball coach in history. The head coach at San Diego State since 1997, she moved past Linda Spradley, who earned a 253-372-4 record from 1984-94. The two were co-head coaches from 1995-96 with a 48-69 record. Following the historic win, the Aztecs defeated UC Riverside, 2-0, to move Van Wyk's career record to 255-200-1. Both games were part of the final day of the San Diego Classic.
"It's an honor," Van Wyk said. "I'm just glad to be at San Diego State and have the chance to work here. It's been the influence of a lot of great players, assistant coaches and everybody else who has supported the program."
The Aztecs had every part of their game in full force at this weekend's San Diego Classic, winning the 10-team tournament with an undefeated 5-0 record. The pitchers did not allow an earned run throughout the tournament, co-hosted with the University of San Diego, while the batters hit .365 after entering the tournament with a .227 average.
"It was a great weekend," Van Wyk said. "It was nice to all parts of the game come together and to see our offense come back. (The success) was not a great surprise. We've got it in us. The only thing holding us back from here on out is ourselves."
Following the record-breaking game, pitcher Deanna Richards (Visalia, Calif.) threw a one-hit, 2-0 shutout against UC Riverside. Her only allowed hit came in the third on a short pop that landed in front of streaking second baseman Joann Figueroa (Phoenix, Ariz.), who had no time to get the batter at first. It was SDSU's first one-hitter of the 2004 campaign and the sophomore's first seven-inning one-hitter of her career (she threw a complete game, six-inning one-hitter in an 8-0 victory over New Mexico State on Feb. 28, 2003).
When center fielder Janna Kovensky (San Diego, Calif.) walked with two outs in the first, it was the 63rd of her career, breaking Chrystal Friesen's (1993-96) school record of 62. Kovensky walked 22 times as freshman, 13 in 2002, 10 in 2003 and, following an additional walk later in the UC Riverside game, has 19 this season. The school record for walks in a season is 28, set in 1998 by Anna Marie Risquez.
The Aztecs were aided in the fifth inning by an obstruction call on the Highlander shortstop as right fielder Bree Boyer (Huntington Beach, Calif.) was making her way from second to third. Boyer began the inning with a walk and scored the game's first run on right fielder Bridgette Caron's (Fallbrook, Calif.) single down the left field line. SDSU scored an insurance run in the sixth after Murphy singled to center and came around to score on a UC Riverside error.
In the first game against Buffalo, the Aztecs took control in the first inning, stringing together five consecutive singles and scoring four runs. Single tallies in the fourth and fifth finished the scoring of SDSU's 6-0 victory. Shortstop Meagan Hartung (San Diego, Calif.) tripled and crossed home plate in the fourth. Figueroa doubled and stole home as part of a double steal in the fifth.
Boyer went 3-for-3 with a double and RBI against the Bulls. Figueroa and first baseman Kelcy Murphy (San Diego, Calif.) both went 2-for-4. Pitcher Celena Velasquez (Tucson, Ariz.) threw a five-hit shutout.
The Aztecs' next game is their Mountain West Conference opener, a doubleheader at 4 p.m. MST on April 2 at BYU. The first game will be broadcast on BYUTV, which can viewed on the Internet at www.byutv.org. SDSU then heads to Salt Lake City on April 3 to take on Utah for a noon MST doubleheader. The Aztecs return home for a MWC doubleheader against Colorado State at 1 p.m. on April 9. In the MWC preseason poll, the Aztecs were selected first and the Rams second.