{"id":169008,"date":"2026-02-08T07:11:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T07:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/169008\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T07:11:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T07:11:12","slug":"walkoff-win-opens-kendall-fearn-era-for-long-beach-state-softball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/169008\/","title":{"rendered":"Walkoff Win Opens Kendall Fearn Era For Long Beach State Softball"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 Battling from behind, Long Beach State first tied Oregon State in the sixth and then walked off the Beavers in the seventh to hand <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/coaches\/kendall-fearn\/1277\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"1277\" target=\"_blank\">Kendall Fearn<\/a> her first win at the Beach in a 4-3 victory. The Beach then kept it rolling in a 2-0 shutout of Utah Tech to open the season with a pair of home wins.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nOregon State (1-1) opened up the scoring in the day&#8217;s first contest for Long Beach State (2-0). After two clean innings, a solo home run from Morgan Howey put the Beavers on the board in the third, the only blemish in four otherwise outstanding innings from Beach starter <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/isabella-alonso\/9497\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9497\" target=\"_blank\">Isabella Alonso<\/a>.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Beach took their own lead in the fourth through some aggressive small ball. <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/priscilla-iniguez\/8594\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8594\" target=\"_blank\">Priscilla Iniguez<\/a> opened the inning with a single, and a walk put two runners on base. Moving the runners over, a perfectly executed squeeze from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/miranda-gonzalez\/8593\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8593\" target=\"_blank\">Miranda Gonzalez<\/a> scored pinch runner <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/sophia-stein\/8597\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8597\" target=\"_blank\">Sophia Stein<\/a> and left runners on the corners.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nNext turning to a double steal, the Beach caught Gonzalez at second but <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/kali-su-e\/9496\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9496\" target=\"_blank\">Kali Su&#8217;e<\/a> scored as the freshmen combined to give the Beach a 2-1 lead.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe long ball got the Beach again, however, as a single followed by a home run for Jaeya Butler accounted for two of the five hits for Oregon State, and put the Beavers back on top 3-2 in the top of the sixth.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Beach had a quick answer to keep the momentum in the bottom half. Iniguez again got the action started with a single, and after a walk to <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/malayna-terrones\/8598\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8598\" target=\"_blank\">Malayna Terrones<\/a>, a passed ball moved both runners into scoring position. Iniguez then capitalized, scoring on a sac fly from Gonzalez to tie the game at 3-3.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nAfter <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/lindsey-cowans\/8589\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8589\" target=\"_blank\">Lindsey Cowans<\/a> worked a quick top of the seventh the Beach went back to work. Sepulveda started the inning by reaching base, with a single from <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/lina-apodaca\/8587\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8587\" target=\"_blank\">Lina Apodaca<\/a>, a wild pitch then moved both into scoring position. Only one would home however, as Sepulveda sealed the win, scoring on a walkoff single by <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/avery-weisbrook\/8599\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8599\" target=\"_blank\">Avery Weisbrook<\/a> to take the first game of the year 4-3, giving Kendal Fearn her first victory as a head coach.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nPitching carried the second game, as Cowans continued on after the first game and pitched four innings, allowing just one hit. The Beach then broke through, once more behind the sophomore Iniguez. Her third hit of the day opened up the fourth inning, and after a fielder&#8217;s choice, Su&#8217;e stole second and scored on a single from Terrones to put Long Beach State on top 1-0.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State added a key insurance run in the sixth, as Terrones, Gonzalez and <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/erica-estrada\/8591\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"8591\" target=\"_blank\">Erica Estrada<\/a> hit three straight singles to put the Beach on top 2-0. That would be plenty as the Beach staff finished off the combined shutout, with freshman <a href=\"https:\/\/longbeachstate.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/audrey-lopetegui\/9502\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9502\" target=\"_blank\">Audrey Lopetegui<\/a> collecting the save in 2.2 innings of work in her first collegiate appearance.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLong Beach State will continue their opening tournament with a neutral game against Northern Colorado from LMU Saturday at 12:30 p.m., before a rematch with Oregon State and a game with Utah at home from the LBSU Softball Complex on Sunday starting at 10 a.m.<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2013 Battling from behind, Long Beach State first tied Oregon State in the sixth and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-169008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169008","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=169008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}