May 11, 2000
This Weekend: The ninth-ranked Stanford softball team (44-14, 8-10 Pac-10) will conclude its regular season schedule when they take on the Arizona schools beginning this Friday at the Stanford Softball Complex. The Cardinal will open against second-ranked Arizona (50-7, 13-4 Pac-10) on Friday at 2 p.m., before playing a doubleheader against Arizona State (39-15, 7-11 Pac-10) on Saturday at 2 p.m. Stanford is on a five game winstreak and has won its last three Pac-10 games after a sweep of the Oregon schools last weekend. The Cardinal split two games with the Wildcats in Tucson in April, while falling in its lone game against the Sun Devils. Stanford sits a game ahead of Arizona State for fourth place in the Pac-10 standings, while Arizona is within range of the Pac-10 title, trailing Washington by one game.
NCAA Selection Show: The NCAA will announce its pairings for the 2000 NCAA Softball Tournament on Sunday, May 14 at 6:30 p.m. The tournament will include 48 teams at eight regional sites playing a double-elimination format between May 18-21. The winner at each site will advance to the Women's College World Series May 25-29. The satellite coordinates for the NCAA selection show are Telestar 6, C Ban, Transponder 7 at 93 degrees west at 6:30 p.m. It can also be viewed on DSS dish on Fox Sports Net West or Fox Sports Net Arizona.
Mendoza Memo: Sophomore All-America OF Jessica Mendoza (Camarillo, CA) is proving that there is not a record safe as long as she is on the field for the Cardinal. In her second season on The Farm, Mendoza already appears on eight of 13 Cardinal career statistical lists. Among those records, Mendoza sits atop the career home run (20), batting average (.445) and stolen bases (23) lists. On the single season lists, Mendoza has already surpassed the record for hits (87), doubles (19), home runs (11), runs scored (54) and stolen bases (17). If her .478 average holds up through the end of the season, she will smash the current single-season record of .415, which she set last season. Mendoza had a season-high 19-game hit streak that started against Long Beach State (2/19) and continued through a doubleheader against Pacific (3/22). What makes Mendoza's accomplishments even more impressive is the fact that she reaching these milestones against the best pitching conference in the nation. Pac-10 pitchers have posted a 1.36 ERA and strikeout 6.52 batters per game this season. Mendoza has struckout only 11 times in 182 at-bats and has won three Pac-10 Player of the Week honors this year.
More Mendoza: Jessica Mendoza leads the Pac-10 in hitting (.478), hits (87) and runs scored (54) heading into the week... Mendoza is third in doubles (19), total bases (141) and fourth in stolen bases (17)... Mendoza hit .857 (6-for-7) in a doubleheader against San Jose State last Tuesday... In game two, Mendoza had two home runs, the first a second inning grand slam, a double, six RBI and two runs scored... Mendoza finished last week hitting .615 (8-for-15), with five runs, seven RBI, three doubles and two home runs to go along with a .706 on-base percentage.
National Leaders: Amongst the NCAA national leaders released May 9, Jessica Mendoza is the leader in hitting with a .478 average and is 12th in the country with .33 doubles per game (19 total). Freshman P Dana Sorensen's ERA of 1.01 is ranked 31st and Maureen LeCocq is tied for 42nd with a 1.09 ERA. As a team the Cardinal has the 17th best winning-percentage at .736 (44-14).
Cardinal Chronicle: Jessica Mendoza leads the team in multiple hit games with 25, followed by Sarah Beeson (Tucson, AZ) with 17 and sophomore SS Robin Walker (La Palma, CA) with 16... Mendoza and Walker each have one game in which they have four hits... Beeson has 13 games this season in which she has totaled two or more RBI, including four 3 RBI games, two 4 RBI games and one 7 RBI game.
Sorensen's Story: Freshman Dana Sorensen (San Diego, CA) (22-7) posted her 13th and 14th complete games of the season with seven innings of work against Oregon and Oregon State last weekend. Sorensen shutout the Ducks for six innings before allowing a home run to lead off the seventh, ending her streak of innings pitched without allowing an earned run at 38. She struckout five batters, allowed five hits and two walks for the win. Despite allowing eight hits in the game and a run in the third inning, Sorensen struckout eight batters is closing in the on the Stanford singles-season record for wins (24, Becky Blevins in 1998) and is well below the ERA record (1.24, Becky Blevins in 1998) at 1.01. Her ERA ranks fifth in the Pac-10.
RBI Report: Sophomore 1B Sarah Beeson is closing in on the single-season record for RBI, which was set last season by Jessica Mendoza at 57. Beeson enters the weekend series against the Arizona schools with 52 RBI. With an RBI opportunity this season, Beeson is hitting .384 and she has driven in 20 runners with two outs in an inning. Her RBI production in the past two seasons has already placed Beeson fourth on the all-time list with 89 RBI.
New Single-Season Wins Record: With its 2-1 victory over Oregon last Friday, Stanford won its 42nd game of the season to set a new Cardinal record for wins. The Cardinal has now surpassed the 40-win plateau the last three seasons, tallying a 41-18 record in 1998 and a 40-25 record last season. With two wins over Oregon State, Stanford now has 44 wins and a chance at 50 wins for the first time in its history with a strong final weekend of the regular season and postseason action.
Double Threat: Freshman Maureen LeCocq (Woodland Hills, CA) had success at the plate and in the circle in Stanford's 3-0 win over Oregon State last Saturday. LeCocq carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning on her way to her first complete-game shutout of the year. She helped her own cause in the top of the seventh inning when she drove in two runs on a double and then scored the final run of the game on a single by junior 3B Jenni Shideler. The win improved LeCocq's record to 8-4 and dropped her ERA to 1.09 in 96.0 innings pitched.
Senior Day: Seniors Kellie Wiginton (Fresno, CA) and Lauren Gellman (Los Gatos, CA) will be honored by the Stanford softball team for their four years of service prior to Saturday's game against Arizona State at the Stanford Softball Complex. Wiginton, an All-America selection in 1999, will conclude her career as Stanford's all-time leader in games played (241), putouts (1,100) and at-bats (746). Wiginton has played in every game since joining the Stanford softball team in 1997. Gellman has set career-highs in games played (44) and games started (27) in her final season, hitting .157 with four RBI and nine bases on balls.
Can It Get Any Closer: The Cardinal continued its string of close Pac-10 Conference games with 2-1 victories over Oregon and Oregon State. In 18 conference games played by Stanford, 14 have been decided by 2 or fewer runs. The Cardinal is 3-3 at home and 5-3 on the road in those close ball games. Two of these close games came against Arizona State and Arizona on the road last month. The Cardinal fell 4-3 to the Sun Devils on April 7, before winning an April 9 game 4-3 against the Wildcats.
Non-Conference Record: The Cardinal has posted a 36-4 record against non-conference opponents this season, after sweeping its doubleheader against San Jose State on May 2, 5-1 and 12-1. The Cardinal won a season-high 15 non-conference games between March 4 and April 4 and is out-scoring out of conference opponents by a 215-to-68 margin. Stanford's hitters have blistered opponents with a .318 average and 22 home runs, while the pitching staff has a combined 1.05 ERA.
Ranking Review: Stanford moved to No. 9 in the May 10 edition of the USA Today/NFCA Coaches Top 25. Stanford had entered the week with a 44-14 record and 15 wins over ranked opponents. Stanford had been No. 10 in the May 3 poll. The Cardinal began the 2000 season ranked 21st and has appeared in the Top 25 of every regular-season poll since early in the 1998 season, reaching a high of No. 7 during 1999. Pac-10 teams hold four of the top five spots in the poll, and seven of the top 13. All eight Pac-10 teams are ranked in the top 19 in the latest poll. Stanford's highest ranking of the 2000 season came on March 26 at No. 8.
Head Coach John Rittman: Year four of the John Rittman era began on Jan. 29. Rittman has led the Cardinal to a 156-84-1 (.648) record through three-plus seasons. He posted his 100th career victory on April 1, 1999, 16-0 over Utah State. Rittman's 150th win came in the second game of a doubleheader against Sacramento State, an 11-5 Cardinal victory. Rittman took over a Stanford program that had never had more than 24 wins in a season and directed the team to 31 wins, and its first-ever winning record, in his rookie campaign. Rittman's squad has won at least 40 games in each of the past three years, advancing to the NCAA tournament twice. The Cardinal had never been ranked before, but Rittman has seen his team climb as high as seventh in the NFCA coaches poll, one year ago, and attain a current national ranking of No. 9.