PREVIEW
• Winners of three straight, Sacramento State (11-6) will travel to Riverside for this week's Lance Up Invite, hosted by California Baptist. The Hornets will play five games over three days.
• The Hornets are coming off a successful Capital Classic home tournament in which they went 4-1 at the four-day event. Playing through rainy conditions seemingly every game, Sacramento State beat BYU, Utah State (twice) and UC Santa Barbara.
• The Hornets are one of four teams competing in a round robin tournament at this week's Lance Up Invite. Sacramento State will play UC San Diego twice, tournament host California Baptist twice, and once against Harvard.
• Sacramento State plays Friday vs. UC San Diego at 10 a.m. and California Baptist at 3 p.m., Saturday vs. Harvard at 10 a.m. and UC San Diego at 3 p.m., and conclude the tournament on Sunday vs. California Baptist at 12:30 p.m.
• Both games vs. California Baptist will be streamed on ESPN+. All five games will have live stats. Reminder all multimedia links (video and live stats) can be found next to each game on the softball schedule at hornetsports.com.
• The four teams enter the week with the following records: Sacramento State (11-6), Harvard (8-1), California Baptist (9-10) and UC San Diego (4-14).
• Friday begins a stretch of a season-long 11 straight games away from home as Sacramento State will spend the next two weekends in Riverside and Stockton sandwiched around a doubleheader on March 13 at Stanford. The Hornets do not play at home again until March 19.
• Sacramento State will be playing Harvard for the first time in program history, while the Hornets are 3-1 all-time against California Baptist, and 1-1 vs. UC San Diego. All of the meetings with California Baptist and UC San Diego have come since 2019.
• The Hornets are 5-4 away from home, including 3-3 at neutral sites and 2-1 on the road.
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Lewa Day was named the Big Sky Player of the Week on Monday, marking the second time she has earned the award this year. So far this season, Day has become the first Hornet to hit 50 career home runs, and just last weekend, set the program record for career RBIs. She now has 155.
• Day's 24 RBIs this season rank 19th in the nation, and her average of 1.41 RBIs per game are the 13th best mark in the country. Her five home runs account for over half the team's production (8).
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Alexis Parish leads the team with nine multiple-hit games and a .420 batting average. The left fielder is one of four Hornets to start all 17 games:
Lewa Day at third base,
Kennedy Echols in center field, and
Gwen Ludwig at shortstop.
• Right fielder
Haley Hanson is 11-for-12 in stolen base attempts this season, which is already tied for the fifth best single-season mark in the Hornets' Div. I era (1990-pres.). Her 34 career steals are third most in program history, and needs just six steals to tie, and seven to set the school record.
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Samantha Parish, who has started nine games at catcher and six at first base, has struck out just twice in 40 at-bats. She is batting .325, and has made a lethal offensive combination with her sister Alexis. Samantha and Alexis are the first sisters to play on the same Sacramento State softball team since Londyn and Tiffany Ray in 1997.
• The Hornets are currently batting .338 as a team, the 23rd best mark in the country. All nine current starters are hitting between .308 and .420.
• The Hornets have committed just nine errors in 17 games (compared to 30 for their opponents), and the .981 fielding percentage is the 12th best mark in the nation. Sacramento State has played in 11 games this season without committing a miscue in the field.
• Led by staff ace
Marissa Bertuccio (5-2, 2.12 ERA), the Hornets' pitching staff has a 3.23 team ERA. Bertuccio and
Savannah Wahl (3-1, 2.66 ERA) have been the top hurlers thus far, combining for 73 strikeouts in 72 innings. Bertuccio is a two-time Big Sky Conference Pitcher of the Year selection.
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Avery Brown has six pinch running appearances this season, and has scored four times.
