The 2 freshmen hurlers held Azusa Pacific to just 5 hits on the day, all singles, as the NAIA’s top-ranked Lancers swept a Golden State Athletic Conference doubleheader from the Cougars, 5-0 and 4-0, in Riverside this afternoon.
In the opening game, Ferreira retired the first 10 Cougars she faced as the Lancers parlayed a pair of Cougar fielding miscues into 2 runs and 3-0 lead after 4 innings of play.
Azusa Pacific could not mount much of a threat against the Ferreira, who yielded a pair of fourth-inning singles to Jen Whitten and Natalie Mickelson to lose her no-hit bid but got out of the inning unscathed.
The only other Cougar to reach base was Nicole Llorens, whose 2-out single to right in the top of the seventh momentarily extended game before Ferreira ended play with her second strike out of the contest.
Cougar pitcher Erin Halma allowed just 4 hits herself but it was Kendall Gorham’s fifth home run of the season, a solo shot in the second inning for the game’s first hit, that proved to be a difference-maker. Nina Cabrales’ 2-run single in the fifth inning pushed the Lancer lead to 5-0.
In the second game, Holden took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, allowing just 2 Cougars to reach base on a hit-batsman and a walk. Halma ended all suspense, however, with a single to leftfield to start the seventh. Llorens followed with a single to right, but as Ferreira did in the first game, Holden ended the nightcap with 1 of her 12 strikeouts.
Cal Baptist tallied 3 of its 7 hits in the game during the second inning to score 3 runs off Camille Hundley.
Llorens accounted for 2 of the Cougars’ 5 hits on the day, collecting singles in both games.
Cal Baptist becomes only the second team this season to shutout the Cougars in a doubleheader sweep. Concordia University was the first to claim such a feat on March 3.
With the sweep, Cal Baptist moves to 38-2 overall, 14-2 in the GSAC. Azusa Pacific, which earlier in the day broke into the NAIA Coaches’ Poll for the first time this season at No. 21, falls to 21-15 overall, 7-9 in the GSAC.
