Toledo struggles in Cali

The University of Toledo softball team competed in nine games during spring break. The Rockets won their opening game against St. Peter’s 5-0 on March 4 in the SLO Cal Poly Mustang Classic, but fell short in game two to the host Cal Poly 9-0.

The Rockets went on to lose their next three games by a combined score 19-8.

UT ended the winning drought with a 6-5 win over Cal-State Northridge on March 10 in the second game of the Cal State Northridge Matador Classic before dropping the next three in the classic.

Toledo moved to 4-17 on the season, with all their games played outside of Ohio so far.

Against St. Peter’s senior RHP Marla Gooding (3-5) took command of the rubber throwing a complete game shutout with four strikeouts.

Leading the Rockets was junior Chandler Rice going 2-for-3 with a homerun and two RBI’s. Sophomore Kaitlyn Bergman joined her with two hits including a solo homerun.

Toledo got things going with a run in the bottom of third to take a 1-0 lead. The Rockets tacked on another run in the bottom of the fifth following an RBI single by sophomore Ashley Rausch.

In the bottom of the third UT busted the game open with a two-run homer by Rice and a solo shot by Bergman to close out the scoring at 6-0.

Toledo took on UC Riverside for a double header on March 8 in between the two tournaments. The Rockets dropped the first game 5-3 before losing the second game of the double header in a very competitive 3-2 match.

Toledo out hit Riverside 7-4 but it wouldn’t be enough in the 3-2 loss.

The Rockets got on the board first with two runs in the top of the first. Neither team scored over the next five innings.

UC Riverside cut the lead to 1 in the bottom of the sixth with two triples in the inning.

Riverside tied things up with small ball in the bottom of the seventh inning. With runners on first and second, Stephanie Tickemyer sacrifice bunt advanced the runners over to second and third. The next batter, Hannah Rodriguez grounded out to first bringing in a runner to tie things up at 2 each.

With two outs, Richards singled to shortstop for an RBI single for the walk-off win.

The Cal State Northridge Matador Classic was not kind to UT, as the Rockets were outscored 38-15. Toledo opened up the Classic with a 11-3 loss to Grand Canyon before defeating the host Cal-State Northridge 6-5 in game two of day one double-header.

Gooding (4-6) threw her seventh complete game of the season picking up her fourth win in the process. She finished the game allowing four runs and striking out five.

Toledo got the scoring going in the top of first following a walk by senior Jessica Lemieux. She stole second and third base before crossing the plate after a throwing error on Northridge’s catcher.

The Matadors tied things up in the bottom half of the opening frame.

Toledo went on to score a single run in each of the next five innings to take a 6-1 lead going into the bottom of the sixth.

Cal State scoring drought ended with a run in the bottom of the sixth to cut the UT lead to four. In the Matadors last attempts, Katie Hooper cranked a three-run homer to pull Northridge back to one with no outs.

Gooding stuck out the next two batters before forcing the final batter to pop-out to end the game.

The Rockets fell short to San Diego in a 5-2 loss the next day before losing to Grand Canyon for a second time by eight runs, this time 10-2.

Toledo closed out their California road trip with a 7-2 thumping to Oregon State.

UT will return to the diamond when they travel to Huntington, WV to take on Marshall on March 15 for a double-header.