Santa Clara 1, Nevada 2
Friday, February 28, 2025 – 12 p.m.
Sacramento, Calif. – Shea Stadium
 
W: Tess Bumiller (3-1)
L: Cari Ferguson (2-3)
 
Nevada 6, Sacramento State 1
Friday, February 28, 2025 – 2:30 p.m.
Sacramento, Calif. – Shea Stadium
 
W: Ainsley Berlingeri (2-0)
L: Caroline Evans (3-2)
S: Hailey McLean (2)
 
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Nevada Softball opened the Capital Classic with a pair of wins, defeating Santa Clara, 2-1, and Sacramento State, 6-1. Wolf Pack pitching dominated only allowing 10 hits and two runs while walking just three.
 
Santa Clara 1, Nevada 2
The Wolf Pack opened the doubleheader with a one, two, three inning, quieting down the Broncos top of the lineup. Santa Clara responded, shutting down the Pack bats with the bases loaded, striking out the Wolf Pack's Mary Nutter Stars, Haley Painter and Haylee Engelbrecht.
 
Nevada got the scoring going in the bottom of the second when Tatum Maytorena scored on a wild pitch. The Broncos quickly tied the game by tripling to right field with two outs and scoring the runner with an RBI single up the middle.
 
The game stayed quiet for a while thanks to great pitching from both sides of the scorecard. Each team used one pitcher for the entire game. Tess Bumiller went the distance for the Pack, allowing six hits and one run while striking out a season-high five batters and walking two. Santa Clara's pitcher, Carli Ferguson allowed just two runs, one earned while striking out six.
 
Lexi O'Gorman walked off the game in a pinch-hit at-bat, sending a flare into left field, scoring Bailie Clark from second. The at-bat was O'Gorman's first career pinch-hit at bat.
 
B. Clark and Maytorena led the Pack with a pair of hits each. Maytorena hit her team-leading third triple of the season in the sixth.
 
Nevada 6, Sacramento State 1
Nevada looked to get a quick start, loading the bases in the first inning with no outs. The opportunity was thwarted by a 5-2-3 double play and a strikeout to end the inning. The second bases-loaded situation with less than two outs that the Pack couldn't capitalize on.
 
The Pack responded to the blown opportunity with a one, two, three bottom of the first from Ainsley Berlingeri.
 
Sacramento State opened the scoring with a towering home run to left field to take a 1-0 lead in the second inning.
 
The Wolf Pack scored six unanswered runs, starting with a Painter two-run single through the right side, scoring B. Clark and Jenkins.
 
Painter continued her stellar performance in the fifth inning, hitting a home run off the left field foul pole, scoring Madison Clark in the process, bringing Painter's RBI total to four for the game. Painter's home run gives her sole possession of the fourth most home runs in Wolf Pack history with 29.
 
Painter doubled in the seventh inning to cap off her three-hit game. A dropped Engelbrecht infield pop fly with two outs allowed Painter's pinch runner, Matlyn Leetch, to score from second base. Maya Larsen capped the scoring with a double to the right-center gap to score Engelbrecht from first.
 
Hailey McLean shut down the Hornets in the bottom of the seventh, going three up, three down to end the game. Maytorena made a spectacular catch while backpedaling to the warning track to keep the Hornets quiet. McLean retired six of seven batters without allowing a hit in her second consecutive save performance.
 
Berlingeri got her second win of the season in the start. She pitched five innings while striking out four, only allowing four hits and one earned run.
 
M. Clark had a two-hit game with a pair of singles in the first and fifth innings. B. Clark extended her hit streak to eight games, the longest hit streak by any Pack player this season. Painter reached base for the 12^th straight game while extending her hit streak to six games. Other key on-base streaks include B. Clark, eight games, and Jenkins, seven game.
 
Nevada is back at Shea Stadium tomorrow, March 1, with a 2:30 p.m. game taking on Sacramento State again.