{"id":168591,"date":"2026-02-07T22:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168591\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T22:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:51:10","slug":"softball-sweeps-opening-day-with-pair-of-walk-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/168591\/","title":{"rendered":"Softball Sweeps Opening Day with Pair of Walk-Offs"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN DIEGO \u2013 The San Diego State softball team won its first two games of 2026 on Friday night in the SDSU Season Kickoff tournament at SDSU Softball Stadium. The Aztecs (2-0) beat Minnesota (0-2) 3-2 on a Julie Holcomb<\/a> walk-off single before an Olivia Gigante<\/a> home run put the run rule into effect for a 9-1, six-inning win over Loyola Chicago (0-2).<\/p>\n

In the top of the first inning against Minnesota, Ava Schaffel<\/a> faced the minimum after working around a walk by inducing a 1-6-3 inning-ending double play. Julie Holcomb<\/a> singled and moved into scoring position in the bottom of the inning.<\/p>\n

Minnesota jumped ahead in the second inning. Sydney Schwartz singled and moved into scoring position on a walk of Brooklyn Jones, who was thrown out at second base on a fielder\u2019s choice. Schwartz scored on a wild pitch with two outs. Schaffel struck out Jae Cosgriff to strand Cameron Chard on third base. The Aztecs struck back in the bottom of the inning. Jazmin Williams<\/a> led off with a single before Jade Ignacio<\/a> hit a two-run go-ahead homer to right field.<\/p>\n

SDSU looked to add on in the third after singles by Holcomb and Williams as well as a walk by Gigante loaded the bases, but Macy Richardson was able to escape the jam.<\/p>\n

For the Golden Gophers, Jones hit a two-out double in the fourth inning and came around to score on a Chard single to tie the game.<\/p>\n

In the sixth, Williams walked, moved up on a sacrifice bunt and a wild pitch, but was stranded at third base as the go-ahead run.<\/p>\n

Freshman two-way player Matti Kwarta<\/a> came in to pitch in the seventh for the Aztecs and sat down the side in order. Lala Macario<\/a> reached on a two-base error to lead off the bottom of the inning. Kaila Pollard<\/a> was hit by a pitch to bring Holcomb to the plate. She singled into right field, scoring Macario and earning the Aztecs a win to start the season.<\/p>\n

Kwarta started in the circle against Loyola Chicago and worked around a walk and a single for a scoreless first inning. The Aztecs threatened in the bottom of the frame but an inning-ending double play ended the first.<\/p>\n

The Ramblers scored first in the second inning. Skyler Croker walked and came around to score on a double by Abbie Gregus. Transfer Faith Jordan<\/a> replaced Kwarta in the circle and got two outs to end the inning without any more damage. In the bottom of the inning, Williams and Ignacio led off with singles. Ignacio stole second to put two runners in scoring position for Quinn Waiki<\/a>. She hit a sacrifice fly to left field, scoring Williams to tie the game. Ally Dueker<\/a> singled to left field and the left and center fielders collided, allowing Ignacio to score the go-ahead run.<\/p>\n

Jordan went on to retire the first eight hitters she faced, allowing just one baserunner on a bunt single in 4.2 innings. She struck out four.<\/p>\n

In the third, Gigante doubled and trotted home on a two-run Williams homer to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n

The Aztecs scored two more in the fifth inning. Pollard led off with a single and was run for by Andrea Tall<\/a>. Holcomb walked to move Tall into scoring position before a Gigante flyout allowed her to advance to third base. SDSU executed a delayed double steal as Holcomb baited a throw, allowing Tall to race home before Holcomb took second base. She moved to third on a Williams single before scoring on an error on the next play.<\/p>\n

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Mia Rodriguez<\/a> pinch hit and singled for her first collegiate hit in her second college at-bat. Holcomb walked with two outs in the inning. Two pitches later, Gigante launched a three-run homer to deep center field to make it 9-1 Aztecs and finish the game.<\/p>\n

THE NOTE
Emma French<\/a>, Kwarta and Tall each made their collegiate debuts while Jordan, Key-annah Pu\u2019a<\/a> and Pollard played as Aztecs for the first time.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT
SDSU wraps up its Opening Weekend with Saturday games against Miami (Ohio) around 2 p.m. and Kentucky around 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

San Diego State 3, Minnesota 2
Minnesota (0-2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 010 100 0 \u2013 2 3 1
San Diego State (1-0)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 020 000 1 \u2013 3 7 1
W \u2013 Kwarta, 1-0; L \u2013 Susa, 0-1
HR: Ignacio, San Diego State (1)<\/p>\n

San Diego State 9, Loyola Chicago 1
Loyola Chicago (0-2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 010 000 \u2013 1 \u00a0\u00a03 3
San Diego State (2-0)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 022 023 \u2013 9 10 0
W \u2013 Jordan, 1-0; L \u2013 Kiel, 0-1
HR: Williams, San Diego State (1); Gigante, San Diego State (1)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2013 The San Diego State softball team won its first two games of 2026 on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[303,74,76,75,300,306,304,301,308,309,302,307,305],"class_list":["post-168591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-aztecs","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-state","tag-san-diego-state-athletics","tag-san-diego-state-aztecs","tag-san-diego-state-university","tag-san-diego-state-university-athletics","tag-san-diego-state-university-aztecs","tag-sdsu","tag-sdsu-athletics","tag-sdsu-aztecs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}