Coming off its third consecutive winning tournament, the Long Beach State softball team is preparing to face a pair of top 10 teams in the Long Beach Louisville Slugger Invitational at Mayfair Park this weekend.
The 49ers (9-6) will start the tournament with a doubleheader against Nevada (10-5) and Utah Valley (0-9). The 49ers defeated Utah Valley 8-1 earlier in the season at the Easton Desert Classic in Las Vegas.
The 49ers haven’t fared well against ranked opponents this season, losing 10-0 in their season opener against then-No. 12 Kentucky and 13-0 against No. 23 Louisiana State. They’ll have their hands full this weekend with top-tier competition.
Michigan (12-2) and UCLA (16-0) rank No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, in the NCAA college rankings. Head coach Kim Sowder believes the 49ers have little margin for error.
“The defensive part of the game needs to be solid,” Sowder said. “When you’re playing really good teams, you can’t give them extra outs, and this team knows that. If we do have mistakes, we gotta be able to get out of jams and not let games get away from us like a few of them have.”
While the 49ers haven’t always had consistent starting pitching, there’s a different area of the team that concerns Sowder.
“I think, more than anything, we need to improve defensively as a team,” she said. “[We] need to continue to grow and get better defensively and just making our routine plays.”
Sowder doesn’t believe there’s a special secret to improving defensively.
“Just come out, practice and work on it; try to make it as game-like as possible and do drills,” she said.
The head coach noted that having several players playing new positions has led to some struggles defensively. She said the more in-game experience they have, the faster they’ll improve.
The one constant so far this season for LBSU has been its offense. The 49ers scored 35 runs this past weekend in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic.
“We’ve been hitting the ball extremely well,” Sowder said. “We’ve scored a lot of runs and had so many clutch hits.”
Leading the potent offense is Ashley Holmes, who’s already earned Big West Player of the Week honors this season. The junior leads the team in batting average, home runs and runs batted in.
“We have players going 3-4 with home runs, and they’re sitting out the next day because you have another player doing just as well,” Sowder said.