May 22, 2017
SAN DIEGO - Five San Diego State seniors recently wrapped up their softball career. The five - Sydnee Cable (Huntington Beach, Calif.), Ashley Ercolano (Poway, Calif./Poway HS), Jaylene Ignacio (Oceanside, Calif./El Camino HS), Frankie Orlando (Roseville, Calif.) and Erica Romero (Corona, Calif.) - led the Aztecs to a Mountain West championship in 2014 and two NCAA tournament appearances.
This past season, SDSU set seven school records (.356 batting average, .418 on-base percentage, .516 slugging percentage, 497 hits, 295 RBIs, 23 sacrifice flies and 324 runs (tied)) and two MW records (.356 batting average and 23 sac flies). San Diego State also recorded its 12th consecutive 30-win season, going 31-18.
Cable was a four-year starter at first base, appearing in 210 career games with 194 starts. She was hit by a pitch a school-record 25 times for her career, including a school single-season record 14 times as a freshman in 2014. Cable batted .330 for her career with 14 home runs, 113 RBIs and 90 runs, and finished first at SDSU in times hit by pitch, third in putouts (1,020), fourth in walks (77), sac flies (8) and fielding chances (1,093), sixth in on-base percentage (.428) and RBIs, eighth in singles (130), ninth in hits (187), and 10th in slugging percentage (.461), doubles (26) and home runs. In all, Cable's name appears 43 times in the Aztec record books.
This year, Cable batted .371 with six homers, 43 RBIs, 23 runs, eight doubles and nine walks. Among the NCAA leaders (before NCAA play), Cable ranked 48th in sac flies (4) and 59th in RBIs per game (0.91). Her 43 RBIs were the 10th most in SDSU single-season history, while her four sac flies tied for fifth. For her efforts, she was named a first-team all-Mountain West pick and a third-team all-NFCA West Region selection. Cable was also a 2014 all-West Region third-team honoree and a second-team MW pick last year.
Ercolano, meanwhile, spent the last three years at San Diego State after transferring from UC Riverside for the 2015 season. After redshirting 2015, she played in 38 games with 13 starts over the past two years. A local product out of Poway HS, Ercolano batted .205 with a home run, eight RBIs, five runs and three walks this year. She also pitched last year, going 2-2 with a 4.38 ERA in 38 1/3 innings. Over her four-year career, she batted .259 with 13 homers, 56 RBIs and 37 runs, while going 12-16 with a 5.03 ERA in the circle in 213 innings
Ercolano, who was a MW Scholar-Athlete and a member of the Mountain West Spring All-Academic Team last year, played in 12 games this season, including the final home game of the season when she helped SDSU beat UNLV with a grand slam.
A regular in the lineup over her career, Ignacio played in 191 games with 147 starts in the outfield. She batted .279 with 16 home runs, 88 RBIs and 84 runs over her career, ranking sixth in school history in sacrifice flies (6) and ninth in homers. Altogether her name appears nine times in the Aztec record books. Additionally, Ignacio committed just seven errors in her career in the outfield.
This year, Ignacio played in all 49 games with starts in 47, posting career highs with a .313 average, 27 runs, 42 hits and eight doubles. She was a first-team all-MW selection in 2014 and is a three-time Mountain West Spring All-Academic Team pick.
Orlando played in 143 games over her career with 101 starts, mostly at catcher, posting a .251 average with 43 RBIs, 18 doubles and 25 runs. Orlando, who had just 10 errors in 469 chances, posting a .979 fielding percentage, appears four times in the SDSU record books, including a .983 fielding percentage as a freshman, the fifth-best by an Aztec rookie in school history.
This year Orlando played in 35 games with 22 starts, recording career highs with a .321 batting average, a .359 slugging percentage and a .354 on-base percentage, while committing just one error in 45 chances in the field. In the classroom, Orlando is a three-time Mountain West Scholar-Athlete and a two-time Mountain West Spring All-Academic Team member.
Romero was one of most prolific pitchers in San Diego State history, going 67-35 with a 3.47 ERA in 659 innings with 38 complete games, six saves, eight solo shutouts and 397 strikeouts. In all, her name appears 27 times in the SDSU record books, including second in career appearances (157) and games started (103), third in wins, fourth in winning percentage (.657) and innings pitched, fifth in saves and sixth in strikeouts.
Romero named the MW Pitcher of the Week six times, including once this year, and was a first-team all-NFCA West Region selection and first-team all-MW pick in 2015 after leading the country in appearances, wins and innings pitched and setting school single-season records in all three marks and games started. At one point during that 2015 run to the NCAA Los Angeles Regional final, Romero threw 953 straight pitches without being relieved and earned San Diego State's final 38 decisions of the year. This year, she was 10-5 with a career-low 3.16 ERA in 32 games and 108 2/3 innings.
SDSU finished the 2017 campaign with a 31-18 overall record and a 15-9 mark and runner-up finish in Mountain West play. The Aztecs did not receive an at-large bid into the NCAA tournament, despite finishing second in the sixth-best conference in the nation (as of May 8) (out of 32 leagues), the 29th-toughest non-conference schedule (as of May 8) and a No. 42 RPI (three teams with worse RPIs were selected in No. 45 Wisconsin, No. 46 Oregon State and No. 47 Fresno State, and every team lower than SDSU got in).