Softball Qualifies For NCAA Tournament
After a school record 33 regular season wins, the softball team was selected for the 60-team NCAA Championship field for the second consecutive season on Monday. CMS (33-8) will open the double-elimination regional against Central College (30-12) at 2:00 Central on Thursday, May 13. The regional is being hosted by Simpson College in Indianola, IA.
CMS, the fourth seed in the eight team regional, will face either top-seeded Linfield College (35-5) or eighth-seeded University of Chicago (24-13-1) on Friday at either 12:00 or 4:00 depending on the results of the Thursday games. Additional games on Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday are possible depending on the results of the Thursday and Friday games.
The Athenas’ top hitters are Harmony Palmer (FR, Oceanside), the SCIAC Player of the Year, who leads the team in batting (.473), RBI (55), doubles (17) and home runs (eight) and Gizelle Pera (JR, Los Angeles), who leads the team in runs scored (44), walks (22) and triples (seven). The CMS pitching staff has three quality starters in Amanda Banducci (SO, Belmont), Rebecca Gularte (SO, Sunnyvale) and Emma Friedenberg (SO, Danville). Banducci is 10-3 with a 1.51 ERA, Gularte is 14-3 with a 2.11 ERA and Friedenberg is 9-2 with a 2.24 ERA.
Betsy Hipple, CMS' fifth year head coach, is the program’s career wins leader with a record of 123-73.