LOS ANGELES – The bats finally came alive, the pitching was excellent and the University of La Verne softball team earned its first victories of the season with a dominant doubleheader sweep of Occidental on Saturday afternoon at Bell Field. La Verne outscored Oxy 30-2.
Game 1: La Verne 19, Occidental 2 (5 innings)
The Leopards opened the scoring in the 1st inning with a Raven Freret RBI double to deep left center that brought in BreeAnna De La Rosa, who had tripled in the previous at-bat. Freret then advanced on a wild pitch, but the Leopards couldn't do further damage and Oxy tied the game at 1-1 in its half of the first when Alex Battest doubled in Ali Goldberg.
Then the floodgates opened.
La Verne sent 10 batters to the plate in the 2nd inning and strung together five hits coupled with an error to score six runs punctuated by Alexis Schiff's bases-clearing double down the left field line that plated three.
The onslaught continued in the 3rd inning as miscues piled up for the Oxy. Laura Olsn scored the first run of the inning on a wild pitch, Freret smacked the third RBI single in as many at-bats and the Tigers committed two more fielding errors as the Leopards scored six more in the frame to effectively put the game out of the reach.
The Leos put six more on the board in the 4th on hits by Katie Thompson, Danielle Vela, Breanna Delgadillo and Du.
Hayley Jacquess earned the first win of her career in the circle. The freshman struck out five in four innings.
Lindsay Godwin pitched one inning in relief and had one strikeout.
The Leopards hit just below .500 as a team, going 18-for-37. Freret, Schiff and Delgadillo all had three hits each. Vela, De La Rosa and Jackie Duran had two apiece.
Every Leopard that stepped in the batter's box scored at least a run.
Jacqueline Shimamoto was the lone multi-hitter for the Tigers, going 2-for-3.
Game 2: La Verne 11, Occidental 0 (5 innings)
Lindsay Godwin and Laura Olsen combined to fire a two-hit shutout as the La Verne beat Oxy, 11-0 in Game 2.
Godwin got the nod to start and limited Oxy to just one hit in four innings. Olson came on in the 5th and finished the game without any trouble.
La Verne bats struck early. The Leopards scored four runs on four hits before even making an out in the 1st. In the 2nd, Freret doubled to bring home two and Schiff followed immediately with her first career homerun to give La Verne a comfortable 8-0 lead.
La Verne tacked on three more in the 3rd and 5th innings on a Vela RBI single and a two-run Schiff triple.
Schiff finished the day 6-for-8 with a double, a triple, a homer and eight RBIs. The freshman also scored four runs for a good measure.
Freret ended the day 5 of 7 with three doubles and six RBIs.
On the day, La Verne compiled 30 runs, 32 hits, nine doubles, three triples and a homerun in just 10 innings.
The Leopards will look to continue the momentum when they travel to Thousand Oaks to face Cal Lutheran next Saturday at 12 p.m.