Photo by Katie Pyne
LOS ANGELES — The Leopards are showing no signs of slowing down.
The University of La Verne softball team completed a convincing sweep of Occidental on Friday at Bell Field to stretch their winning streak to nine games and keep pace with first-place Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.
The Leopards improve to 24-9 overall and 20-3 in the SCIAC. Oxy falls to 11-24 and 7-16.
Melissa Garcia hit a two-run home run, Katherine Kibbe pitched her second straight shutout and La Verne beat Occidental, 7-0, in the first game
Kibbe (14-4) scattered six hits and struck out two to win her seventh straight decision. She hasn't lost a game since March 16.
The Tigers managed to keep the Leopards quiet for 2.2 innings but the Leopards used a two-out rally in the third to open the scoring and never looked back. Carly Condon and Victoria Baltazar hit back-to-back singles to set the table for Mackenzie Dutton and the La Verne slugger delivered. Dutton smacked a double to deep right to score two runs and came around to score herself on an error by the second baseman.
Then with a runner on in the fourth, Garcia cranked one to deep left center to extend La Verne's lead to 5-0.
Kibbe added an RBI infield single in the fifth and Raeleen Tellez doubled in Krystal Smith in the top of the seventh to cap off the Leopards' scoring.
Tellez led the Leopards with two hits.
The Leopards exploded for seven runs in the final three innings in the second game and won, 10-3.
Condon and Alexis Schiff each hit a two-run home run and the Leopards collected a total of 13 hits.
Schiff and Tellez each collected three hits and Kibbe had two.
La Verne staked out to an early 3-0 advantage but the Tigers tied it up in the bottom of the fourth with a wild fielder's choice play that scored two runs to end the inning. But Tellez answered in the next half inning with a two-out RBI single and the floodgates opened.
Condon kept the momentum rolling with her jack in the top of the sixth and Schiff added an exclamation point with her shot in the seventh.
The Leopards are back in action on Sunday at home against Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.