Box Score

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- The Torero softball team (28-18, 7-2) couldn't complete the sweep against Santa Clara, falling to the Broncos 5-4 on senior day. Despite the loss, the Toreros still set a school record with a .773 home winning percentage on the season (17-5).

Before the game, the six USD seniors were honored with a brief ceremony. Noelle Devlin, Kylie McNutt, Kylie Crawford, Morgan Kurtz, Caitlin Rooney, and Chloe Kaneko have won 104 career games thus far, which is the most of any recruiting class under Coach McElvain.

Freshman Paige von Sprecken had a rare rough outing. She gave up one run on three rightfield singles in the first, but limited the damage by stranding three Broncos runners.

The Toreros immediately responded to take the lead. With Olivia Sandusky on second base, Kailey Hill hit a single to left field. After the Bronco leftfielder bobbled it, Sandusky came in to score and Hill advanced to second. Two batters later, Chloe Kaneko brought Hill home with single to right field. Caitlin Rooney then hit her second career triple to score Mary Grabowski, who reached on an error, giving USD a 3-1 lead.

Von Sprecken's struggles continued in the second inning. The first three Bronco batters reached base to load the bases and then Amanda Delfino singled to score one run. The next batter, Geenamarie Bonilla also singled, bringing home two runners, which gave the Broncos the lead and ended von Sprecken's day. Santa Clara scored one more run on a USD error to put the Broncos up 5-3.

Rooney led off the bottom of the fifth with a single and was pinch run for by Hannah Gilliland, who was sacrificed to second by Danielle Mavridis. Tatum Schultz then laced a double to the gap to bring home Gilliland and cut the lead to 5-4 Santa Clara, but that was all the scoring USD could muster.

Von Sprecken (21-8) took the loss, giving up four earned runs in one-plus inning. Grace Hernandez relieved her and was near perfect, giving up just four hits while striking out three in six scoreless innings.

The Toreros travel to Utah next weekend for a crucial series at BYU, who is 6-0 in WCC games. Friday's doubleheader (4 & 6:00 p.m.) will be streamed on TheW.tv and Saturday's noon game will be shown on BYUtv.