ORANGE, Calif. – A dominant pitching performance and a run-rule victory finished off a SCIAC series sweep for the Chapman University softball team. The Panthers defeated Occidental 4-2 and 9-1 to take both games of a doubleheader on Saturday.
Game 1 – W, 4-2
Freshman Anabell Hinojosa struck out a season-high 13 Tigers in a dominant pitching performance during the game one victory. She allowed a pair of runs on five hits and one walk but struck out at least one batter in every inning to pick up her 11th win of the season.
Shea Higa, Kloe Lobato and Hinojosa each had two hits to drive the Panthers offensively. Lobato, who hit two triples on the day, hit her first in the opening inning to put Chapman on the board. She scored a Sam Mather's squeeze bunt.
Chapman scored twice in the first and twice more in the third on a sacrifice fly from Brooke Wiegand and an RBI-single from Hinojosa. After Hinojosa added on the final insurance run, she continued to be dominant in the circle to pick up the win.
Hinojosa is tied for the team lead with 11 wins on the season. She lowered her ERA to 2.15 and raised her batting average to .417 with the two hits.
Game 2 – W, 9-1 (5 innings)
Chapman scored in every inning and Cameron Burroughs was lights out in the circle to end the series with a run-rule victory. The Panthers broke out offensively with nine runs on 12 hits, including five for extra bases.
Lobato tripled again in the fourth while Shea Higa ad Milla Fukuda also tripled in the game. Mia Reyes went 4-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.. Eight different Panthers drove in a run.
Four came across for Chapman in the first inning with one more run coming home in each of the last three innings. A pair of runs in the fifth ended the game early as Higa grounded out but pushed across Fukuda for the game-clincher. Fukuda tripled in a run earlier in the inning.
Burroughs allowed just the one run on five hits with three walks. She also had five assists as she grabbed several comebackers before they could sneak through. She started a 1-6-3 double play to record the first outs of the game.
The second game also featured a defensive highlight reel from Burroughs robbing comebackers to diving catches from Ava Fagin and Mia Reyes. Occidental's Alysha Wagner added to the highlights when she laid out to take away a hit as it headed toward left field.
The Panthers remain in second place in the SCIAC standings with the series sweep and will hist La Verne on Friday at 3 p.m. to start off another SCIAC three-game series.
