{"id":303447,"date":"2026-05-07T00:33:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:33:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/303447\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T00:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:33:22","slug":"aggies-knock-off-long-beach-state-to-open-big-west-championships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/303447\/","title":{"rendered":"Aggies Knock Off Long Beach State To Open Big West Championships"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n &#13;<\/p>\n<p>                    BIG WEST CHAMPIONSHIPS GAME ONE<br \/>\nScore:\u00a0 UC Davis 5, Long Beach State<br \/>\nWinning Pitcher: <a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/ashley-sawai\/20092\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20092\" target=\"_blank\">Ashley Sawai<\/a> (13-4)<br \/>\nLosing Pitcher:\u00a0Isabella Alonso (12-7)<br \/>\nLocation:\u00a0Fullerton, Calif. (Anderson Family Field)<br \/>\nRecords: UC Davis 29-23, Long Beach State 29-22<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nThe short story: UC Davis softball got production from both the circle and at the plate to help power itself to a game one victory over Long Beach State to open up the Big West Championships in the first game the Aggies have ever played at the conference championships.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLEADING OFF<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/caroline-grimes\/20084\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20084\" target=\"_blank\">Caroline Grimes<\/a> started, giving the Aggies a strong 5.1 innings, striking out seven and only giving up one walk along the way&#13;<br \/>\n\tWhile <a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/ashley-sawai\/20092\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20092\" target=\"_blank\">Ashley Sawai<\/a> finished off the game, throwing 1.2 scoreless innings of relief to collect the win and cap off a solid day from the Aggie aces&#13;<br \/>\n\tThe top half of the Aggie lineup was a force, with batters one-through-three going 6-for-11 with two runs and two RBIs between <a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/gia-felice\/20083\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20083\" target=\"_blank\">Gia Felice<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/sydney-polli\/20089\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20089\" target=\"_blank\">Sydney Polli<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/claire-shelton\/20093\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20093\" target=\"_blank\">Claire Shelton<\/a> all giving the Aggies two hits each&#13;<br \/>\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/keira-brady\/20080\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20080\" target=\"_blank\">Keira Brady<\/a> and Felice showed off the power, with Brady hitting a double and Felice adding a triple\u00a0&#13;<\/p>\n<p>HOW IT HAPPENED<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\tLong Beach State opened the scoring the first, when an RBI single made it 1-0 early, but Grimes would lock in and not allow another run until the fourth&#13;<br \/>\n\tIn the third, the Aggies chopped away at and passed the Beach with three runs scored when Polli smashed a single up the middle and Reeves put the ball in play resulting in an error that scored two Aggies making it 3-1&#13;<br \/>\n\tIn the fourth and sixth frames, Long Beach State chipped away at and eventually tied the Aggies at 3-3 after an RBI double in the sixth&#13;<br \/>\n\tBut in the bottom half of the sixth, the Aggies opened things up when Brady smashed a double to right center that brought home <a href=\"https:\/\/ucdavisaggies.com\/sports\/softball\/roster\/marley-panziera\/20088\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"20088\" target=\"_blank\">Marley Panziera<\/a>&#13;<br \/>\n\tBrady&#8217;s double was followed up by Felice who hit a triple to left center that brought home the next Aggie run making it 5-3 and giving Sawai the room she needed to navigate the seventh inning&#13;<br \/>\n\tIn that final frame, Sawai sat The Beach batters down in order, and after a weak ground out to first ended the game, the Aggies celebrated with a huge hug and cheer in the circle as they punched their ticket to the next day and a matchup with the hosting top seeded Cal State Fullerton Titans.&#13;<\/p>\n<p>ON TO THE NEXT DAY: UC Davis now heads to the second day and will face No. 1 seeded Cal State Fullerton, tomorrow May 7 at 1 p.m. for a chance to keep moving ahead in the winner&#8217;s bracket. If the Aggies win they advance to Friday and will face the winner of the Hawai&#8217;i vs. UC Santa Barbara\/UC San Diego game, a loss means UC Davis will play in its first elimination game that night (May 7) at 7 p.m. where they would face the loser between UC Santa Barbara\/UC San Diego and Hawai&#8217;i.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBIG WEST CHAMPIONSHIP TICKETS: Fans can now buy tickets for the Big West Championships, which get started on May 6 and are hosted by Cal State Fullerton. Tickets can be bought by <a href=\"https:\/\/fullertontitanstickets.com\/tickets\/events\/bwsoftballchampionship\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">heading here<\/a>.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nABOUT UC DAVIS ATHLETICS: UC Davis, ranked No. 2 among public universities by the Wall Street Journal in the value of a college degree, is home to 40,000 undergraduate students and 12,000 employees. Ranked top in the United States in agriculture and forestry as well as No. 1 in veterinary medicine, UC Davis is located in a true California college town nestled between world-class destinations such as the San Francisco Bay Area, Napa Valley and Lake Tahoe. Over 650 Aggie student-athletes compete in 25 Division I varsity sports, with 16 sports transitioning to the Mountain West Conference beginning in 2026\u201327.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p># # #<\/p>\n<p>                    Read Full Article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; &#13; &#13; BIG WEST CHAMPIONSHIPS GAME ONE Score:\u00a0 UC Davis 5, Long Beach State Winning Pitcher: Ashley&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-303447","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\/303447","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=303447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}