April 11, 2010
SAN DIEGO -
Junior Jen Wisneski (Riverside, Calif.) homered for the second consecutive game and classmate Samantha Beasley (San Diego/Steele Canyon HS) struck out 12 to give the San Diego State softball team a 6-1 victory over Colorado State Sunday at SDSU Softball Stadium. The Aztecs, who are receiving votes in both the USA Today/NFCA and ESPN.com/USA Softball national polls, won their fourth consecutive game to improve to 25-10 overall and 3-0 in the Mountain West Conference, while the Rams dropped to 22-14 and 0-3.
Senior Brittany Knudsen (San Diego/Escondido HS) and sophomore Justeen Maeva (San Diego/Mira Mesa/Cal State Bakersfield) each had two hits, an RBI and a run to lead the SDSU offense, which outhit CSU, 9-4. Junior Eva Sahatdjian (Fresno, Calif.) had her second straight two-RBI contest, and Wisneski (home run) and freshman Kamerin May (Corona, Calif.) (groundout) each drove in a run.
San Diego State got on the scoreboard in the bottom of the third when freshman Patrice Jackson (Kansas City, Mo.) led off with a triple and scored one batter later on a sacrifice fly by Knudsen.
In the fourth, the Aztecs went up, 2-0, on May's pinch-hit single that scored senior Stefanie Quichocho-Rosario.
Colorado State got one back, however, in the top of the fifth when Ashley Munoz took the first pitch she saw over the left field wall. The run ended Beasley's (20-6) consecutive scoreless streak at 39 innings.
SDSU put the game away with a three-run fifth, highlighted by an RBI single by Maeva and a two-run single by Sahatdjian.
Wisneski added an insurance run in the sixth with her team-leading fourth home run of the season.
Beasley allowed the single run on four hits and no walks over seven innings for her seventh straight victory. She struck out 12, including each of the first five batters she faced, for her ninth double-digit strikeout game of the season and 18th of her career. Beasley, who was not chosen as one of the 2010 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Top 25 Finalists despite ranking in the top-10 in the nation in three categories and in the top-25 in four others, is now 3-0 in conference play with a 0.41 ERA over 17 innings. She has 32 strikeouts and just two walks, while limiting her opponents to one extra-base hit and a .167 average.
San Diego State travels to fellow MWC first-place team UNLV for a single game at 1 p.m. Saturday.
NOTES: The Aztecs are hitting .299 as a team through 35 games, just above their school-record mark of .296 set in 2007 ... SDSU has 13 home runs in 35 games after recording just 12 a year ago over 53 contests ... San Diego State improved to 23-0 this season when outhitting its opponent ... The Aztecs are 21-2 when they score first, 22-0 when leading after five innings and a remarkable 24-4 when scoring just two runs or more ... RHP Samantha Beasley became the sixth 20-game winner in school history ... Her 20-6 record (.769) this season is the best ever by an SDSU player ... Beasley now has 546 career strikeouts, passing Sandra Durazo's 543 (1998-01) for second place on the all-time charts ... Only Christina Ross (612, 2006-08) has more ... With enough at-bats to now qualify for the single-season leaders, CF Brittany Knudsen is first in batting average (.402) and on-base percentage (.470) ... Knudsen moved into sole possession of second place with 127 career runs, just seven shy of Janna Kovensky's 134, set from 2001-04 ... She also moved into third place in total bases (282), a tie for third in sacrifice flies (since 1987) (5) and a tie for 10th in RBIs (72) ... Only five players have had more homers in a season than SS Jen Wisneski's four in 2010.
San Diego State 6, Colorado State 1 Colorado State (22-14, 0-3 MWC) 000 010 0 -- 1 4 0 San Diego State (25-10, 3-0 MWC) 001 131 x -- 6 9 0 Eubanks, O'Brien (6) and Munoz; Beasley and Sahatdjian Win: Beasley (20-6); Loss: Eubanks (16-9) HR: Munoz (CSU) (4), Wisneski (SDSU) (4)