2012 Tournament of Champions Website
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Friday, Mar. 30 |
Saturday, Mar. 31 |
vs. Northwest Nazarene
Pedretti Field 1 | Turlock
8:45 a.m.
Live stats |
vs. Central Washington
Pitman HS Field 2 | Turlock
2:15 p.m.
Live stats |
vs. Notre Dame de Namur
Pedretti Field 5 | Turlock
1:30 p.m.
Live stats |
vs. Hawaii Pacific
Pitman HS Field 2 | Turlock
4:15 p.m.
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vs. Hawaii Hilo
Pedretti Field 5 | Turlock
3:45 p.m.
Live stats |
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HAYWARD, Calif. – The Cal State East Bay softball team is set to continue a busy week when it travels east for the 11th annual Mizuno Tournament of Champions in Turlock on Friday. The Pioneers (18-16) are set to open the 24-team tournament with games against Northwest Nazarene, Notre Dame de Namur and Hawaii Hilo on Friday before meeting Central Washington and Hawaii Pacific to round out pool play on Saturday. The tournament then goes into a single-elimination bracket format on Sunday. The Pioneers and Crusaders will kick things off at 8:45 a.m. on Friday at Pedretti Park in Turlock.
Cal State East Bay is coming off a successful series against then-No. 14 UC San Diego earlier this week. The Pioneers split with the Tritons, claiming their second and third victories of the season against a nationally ranked opponent.
Emily Montanez,
Jamie Yaller,
Taylor Neumann and
Taryn Thomas led East Bay offensively during the series. Montanez hit .462 and drove in a team-leading five runs, while both Thomas and Neumann scored three runs apiece to share the team lead and Yaller posted four RBI. Meanwhile, in the circle,
Lauren Zweigle claimed both Pioneer victories, allowing four runs on 10 hits in 7.1 innings of work. None of the East Bay pitchers gave up more than four runs in the series and freshman
Andi Andersen led the staff with a 1.17 earned run average after her longest outing of the year in which she gave up just one run on seven hits in six innings of work.
The Pioneers are 6-2 over their last eight games, including a four-game series sweep of Cal State Stanislaus two weeks ago. During that span, East Bay saw Neumann become the top homerun hitter in program history, a mark that now stands at 20. Neumann is also increasing her single season record with every homerun, having hit 13 on the year so far, which puts her just five away from tying the CCAA record, set last season by Humboldt State's Chrissy Stalf. East Bay has also broken the team season record for homeruns, hitting 39 already this year and posting 11 multi-homerun games so far this season.
East Bay enters the weekend ranked among the top five in the CCAA in hitting, pitching and fielding, led by seven players batting better than .300. Among them are starters Yaller, who leads the team with a .369 average, Neumann, who leads the conference and is in the top five in Division II in homers, Thomas,
Sara Holdridge and
Devin Salmones. Yaller also leads the team with 28 runs scored, while Neumann's 35 RBI are second in the conference.
The Pioneers will be looking to improve on two previous performances at the Tournament of Champions this weekend. Last year, East Bay opened the weekend with two wins on the first day of pool play before falling three times on the second day to move onto the Consolation Bracket, where they topped Cal State Stanislaus before falling to Central Washington for the second time in as many days to finish second in the bracket. In their first year at the tournament, the Pioneers claimed just one pool-play win before advancing to the Bronze Bracket championship game and finishing as the runner up.
Complete information, including schedules, ticket prices, directions, live stats links and results for the Mizuno Tournament of Champions are available
here. Live stats will be available for four of the five Cal State East Bay pool play games and all games on Sunday.
Tournament Field
This weekend East Bay will be among 24 West Region teams who will play 76 games during the three-day tournament. Among the tournament participants are four teams ranked in the NFCA Division II Top 25 poll, all 10 CCAA teams and eight 2011 NCAA Tournament participants. East Bay is set to meet teams from both the Great Northwest Athletic Conference (GNAC) and Pacific West Conference.
The Pioneers will open the weekend against Northwest Nazarene who comes into the tournament with a 5-17 overall record and has won two of its last eight games. East Bay then meets Notre Dame de Namur, which brings a 14-14 overall record into the weekend and the fourth-best hitter in the PacWest in Janae Reyes, who is hitting .437 with 16 runs and 11 RBI on the year. The Pioneers' finale on Friday will feature Hawaii Hilo, which boasts a 14-11 record and one of the top 10 pitchers in the PacWest in Ashley Nelson, who brings a 2.92 ERA and a 4-2 record into the tournament.
Saturday, the Pioneers will face off against a familiar foe at the Tournament of Champions in Central Washington. The Wildcats are the defending GNAC champs and bring a 9-15 overall record into the weekend after dropping five of their last eight games. East Bay will cap pool play on Saturday afternoon against Hawaii Pacific, which claimed last year's PacWest title and NCAA Tournament berth. The Sea Warriors come into the weekend with an 18-12 record and will face a pair of nationally ranked teams in Cal State Monterey Bay and UC San Diego before taking on the Pioneers in pool play.
Sunday's single-elimination round will feature six separate brackets based on pool play results: Consolation A and B, Platinum, Bronze, Silver and Gold. The sixth and fifth place teams from each group move onto the Consolation bracket, fourth-place teams advance into the Platinum bracket, third-place teams go onto the Bronze bracket, second-place squads advance to the Silver bracket and the top teams from each group will play for the tournament championship in the Gold bracket. Sunday's schedule will be determined following pool play on Saturday evening and will be posted on
eastbaypioneers.com and the
Tournament of Champions website.
What's Next
Following the busy week, Cal State East Bay will jump back into CCAA play next weekend when it hosts Cal State San Bernardino. The Pioneers will then play their final non-conference doubleheader of the season at Notre Dame de Namur on April 10 before traveling to Humboldt State for a four-game series on April 13 and 14.
