FULLERTON — After a shaky start, the Long Beach State softball team came back to defeat DePaul, 2-1, in the opening day of the Judi Garman Classic in Fullerton.
Freshman Erin Jones-Wesley (8-3) stopped some heavy first-inning bleeding for LBSU (17-9) by getting three batters out in a row with first and third base occupied by DePaul (15-6).
However, not before LBSU surrendered three hits and committed two defensive errors.
Nonetheless, The Beach managed to sneak out of the inning by only giving up one run.
“It was a rocky first inning with some misplaced pitches and some not-so-good defensive plays,” Jones-Wesley said. “But I think we really bounced back. The rest of the game, you couldn’t tell we had a bad first inning.”
The Beach bounced back in the fourth inning when sophomore Nalani St. Germain hit a single and then landed on third, courtesy of a wild pitch by DePaul reliever Lindsey Dean and passed ball by catcher Marla Mathews.
After fouling off a couple of pitches to third baseman Lynsey Ciezki, senior Liz Javier hit a solid double to the wall in right center field, scoring St. Germain and tying the game at one.
Senior Christina Schallig hit a single that moved Javier to third, and after freshman Karli Sandoval’s pop up to second, Jones-Wesley came up with the go-ahead RBI single.
“I didn’t realize that I had the RBI until I came back into the dugout, and everyone on my team was like, ‘RBI!'” said Jones-Wesley, who then remembered her teammate was on third.
Jones-Wesley was able to tighten up her pitching after the first inning and finished with five strikeouts and six hits.
“Erin did a really nice job keeping them to that one run and they didn’t score again,” Sowder said. “She shut them down.”
Meanwhile, Lindsey Dean (2-2) took the loss for the Blue Demons as she surrendered two earned runs on six hits while striking out seven.
Junior Taylor Petty came on in relief of Jones-Wesley in the seventh and earned her first save of the season.
“We just had a lot of energy throughout the game,” Sowder said. “It felt like we were going to win the whole game. Taylor came in and did a nice job of closing the door.”
The 49ers will return to action Saturday to face No.19-ranked Louisiana-Lafayette for their second game of the Judi Garman Classic. First pitch is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.
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