{"id":296220,"date":"2026-05-02T06:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296220\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T06:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T06:12:08","slug":"csun-wins-tight-game-over-long-beach-state-7-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/296220\/","title":{"rendered":"CSUN Wins Tight Game Over Long Beach State, 7-6"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONG BEACH,\u00a0Calif. — The CSUN softball team defeated Long Beach State, 7-6 Friday night at LBSU Softball Complex. Madison Okano<\/a> had two hits and an RBI, while\u00a0Vanessa Perez<\/a>, Amber Rivas<\/a> and Mackenzie Kila<\/a> added RBIs as well. Alizae Cole<\/a>\u00a0earned\u00a0her fourth win of the season in the process.
\n\u00a0
\nHOW IT HAPPENED
\nPerez opened the game with a double off the center field wall, before Raegan Jackson<\/a> bunted her over to\u00a0third. Okano brought her home on an RBI ground out, giving CSUN a 1-0 lead.
\n\u00a0
\nIn the bottom of the second, Long Beach State got its revenge.\u00a0With\u00a0the bases loaded, Audree Mendoza hit a sacrifice fly to deep center to score the runner from third and tie the game up at one apiece. After a walk, Lina Apodaca reached on a throwing error by Perez,\u00a0allowing two runs to score giving the Beach a 3-1 lead after two innings.
\n\u00a0
\nIn the top of the third CSUN got one back. Kylie Kolkowski<\/a> reached on a fielding error and Madie Hernandez bunted her to second. A grounder advanced Kolkowski to third, and she scored on a wild pitch\u00a0making\u00a0it 3-2 after two and a half.
\n\u00a0
\nFlash forward to the top of the fifth\u00a0when CSUN tied the score before taking\u00a0the lead. Kolkowski\u00a0was\u00a0hit by a pitch and then was sacrificed over to second. She was brought home by Perez on a single up the middle, tying the score at\u00a03-3.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nWith the bases loaded, Rivas grounded to second base, but the second baseman fumbled the ball and two runners came across to score to make it 5-3. The next batter, Kila, grounded to first base and the first baseman made the fourth error of the inning for the Beach, scoring a run in the process to make it 6-3.
\n\u00a0
\nUnfortunately for CSUN, in the bottom of the fifth, the\u00a0three-run\u00a0lead was\u00a0short-lived. After a walk and a single, Emily Dowden homered to deep left field to even the score at six apiece.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nWith the score knotted at 6-6, Okano led off the seventh\u00a0inning with a single off the pitcher. After Rivas sacrificed her to second, Perseus Yanez<\/a> moved Okano\u00a0to third\u00a0with a ground ball to second. With two outs, Kila then\u00a0delivered a\u00a0double that ricocheted off the wall and Okano scored, making it 7-6. CSUN just needed three more outs to close the ballgame.
\n\u00a0
\nCole retired the Beach in order\u00a0to close out the game for the Matadors and earn the win for the road team.
\n\u00a0
\nNOTES OF THE GAME<\/p>\n


\n\tCSUN improves to 14-40 and 9-16 in Big West play.
\n\tLBSU falls to 27-21 and 15-10 in Big West play.
\n\tCSUN’s postseason hopes are still alive. The Matadors need to win two games tomorrow and CSU Bakersfield needs to win two games tomorrow for CSUN to advance.
\n\tCSUN had seven hits in the game, including a pair of doubles.
\n\tThe Matadors only struck out twice.
\n\tLong Beach committed five errors in the game.
\n\tCole pitched 2.1 innings, only allowing one hit. <\/p>\n

ACCORDING TO HEAD COACH JODIE COX
\n“What a comeback, what a fight. I think we did a really good job of celebrating the little things, and Alizae Cole<\/a> was nails in the circle. She really is made for those moments. She’s so tough. She’s effectively wild and commands his own when she needs to, and plays really good defense for herself in the circle.”
\n\u00a0
\n[On Mackenzie Kila’s<\/a> clutch double in the seventh]\u00a0“You know, I am such a believer that\u00a0big time players step up in big time moments. She was determined to come through at that moment. It was a huge momentum shift for us.”
\n\u00a0
\nUP NEXT
\nCSUN plays a doubleheader against Long Beach State tomorrow at LBSU Softball Complex. The first pitch of game one is at 1:00 p.m. The second game will follow 30 minutes after game one. Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH,\u00a0Calif. — The CSUN softball team defeated Long Beach State, 7-6 Friday night at LBSU Softball Complex.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296221,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-296220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296220","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=296220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}