SACRAMENTO -- Highlighted by a six-hit shutout from ace Marissa Bertuccio, Sacramento State split a home doubleheader with Portland State on Friday afternoon at Shea Stadium. After Bertuccio's gem led the Hornets to a 2-0 win in Game 1, the Vikings scored 10 unanswered runs to win the nightcap by a 13-9 score.

The two teams will wrap up the three-game series tomorrow afternoon at noon. Both teams came into today's doubleheader playing well, as Sacramento State had won seven of its last nine, and Portland State had five of its last six.

The split moved Sacramento State's record to 19-15 overall and 3-2 in league play, while the Vikings are now 19-12 and 3-2 in the Big Sky. Portland State is the defending Big Sky Tournament champions.

Bertuccio was dominant in Game 1, tossing a six-hit shutout with just two walks and a season-high tying nine strikeouts. She escaped jams in both the sixth and seventh innings with strikeouts, and improved her record to 13-4 this season. The right-hander also picked up her fifth shutout and 12th complete game of the year.
 
Sacramento State scored both its runs in the second inning without a hit. A walk and a pair of Portland State errors, punctuated by a Nikki Barboza successful squeeze scoring Gwen Ludwig from third. In fact, the Hornets did not have a hit off PSU starter Olivia Grey until Samantha Parish's double in the sixth.
 
Grey (12-3) took the loss despite allowing just one hit and two unearned runs with 10 strikeouts over six innings. Both Grey and Bertuccio are two of the best hurlers in the Big Sky, and will likely match up again tomorrow afternoon.

The nightcap was a much different game as the two teams combined for 22 runs and 26 hits, and six different pitchers were used. Only one (Grey) was effective, and she pitched a perfect seventh inning to earn the save.

Sacramento State held what appeared to be a comfortable 9-3 lead after five innings. In fact, Lewa Day narrowly missed hitting a grand slam in the fifth which would have ended the game, 11-3, in mercy rule fashion. With the bases loaded, and the score, 7-3, Day crushed a ball that hit high off the left field fence, resulting in a two-run double instead of the potential game-winning grand slam.

The Vikings would then score five times in both the sixth and seventh innings. The top of the seventh saw Sacramento State commit three errors leading to five unearned Viking runs. Portland State, trailing by a run in the seventh, was down to its last strike when Sacramento State proceeded to commit costly errors on back-to-back batters allowing the Vikings to take a 10-9 lead. They would tack on three more before the inning mercifully ended.

Sacramento State scored twice in the first inning on a Samantha Parish two-run homer, and Barboza's RBI-single in the second increased that lead to 3-0. After the Vikings came back with a three-run third, Carley Morfey hit a two-run homer in the bottom half to put the Hornets back up, 5-3. Sacramento State added four more runs in the fourth, which included a two-run pinch hit RBI-single from Milan Machado Buckley.

PSU used four pitchers, and each of the first three were shelled, as the trio combined to allow nine runs and 11 hits through six innings.

Eight different Hornets had hits in the nightcap, including multi-hit games from Morfey, Evans and Barboza.

Lexie Webb did not have a hit in Game 1, and saw her eight-game hitting streak come to a close.