SAN MARCOS — For Cal State San Marcos softball, with the season on the line, it was Jill and Hill.
Facing elimination from postseason play Saturday after dropping the first game of a doubleheader, 2-1, to Cal State Dominguez Hills — the first home loss all season for the No. 3 nationally ranked Cougars (53-9) — CSUSM leaned on the familiar pitcher-hitter combination of Jordan Hill and Jillian Albayati.
Albayati, who entered the regional leading the nation with a .527 batting average, launched a solo home run to center field in the bottom of the first inning to give the Cougars a 1-0 lead, while Hill (17-4) earned the win after pitching 5 ⅓ innings, allowing six hits with two strikeouts in CSUSM’s 4-0 victory to advance to the NCAA Division II Super Regional.
“Jill’s home run in the first was really what we needed and was huge,” CSUSM head coach AJ Robinson said.
“I was just trying to get everybody fired up,” Albayati added.
Game 1 of the regional final was a tight, back-and-forth battle that opened with early offense from CSUSM.
Angelina Rodriguez put the Cougars on the board in the second inning with a solo home run to center field, but Dominguez Hills steadily worked its way back into the game. Makayla Bishop sparked a sixth-inning rally with a double and later scored on an RBI single from Tori Au to tie the score at 1-1. In the seventh, Savanna Kastigar delivered the go-ahead blow with a solo home run to center, lifting Dominguez Hills to a 2-1 win.
Despite the setback, Robinson said there was no panic inside the dugout.
“Two games, a lot of good softball played,” Robinson said. “Dominguez played super hard and gave everything, and it took everything we had to get past them. I knew they would come ready to play. Super proud of our team.”
Robinson said the message between games was straightforward.
“When you lose one, you’ve got to self-reflect a little bit,” he said. “We’ve only lost nine games all year. I told them after Game 1, we have not lost two games in a row. We are a very hard team to beat. We were right there to win Game 1 — we just had to come back, have confidence, and be ourselves.”
In Game 2. Hill set the tone in the circle before turning the ball over to the bullpen.
“I never notice the nerves until I’m sitting on the sidelines,” Hill said. “Through those five innings I was calm, cool, collected. Once I came out and saw Daleah [Cardenas] dealing in there, I was pacing the dugout.”
The Cougars broke the game open in the third inning. Albayati started the rally with a single, Rae D’Amato followed with a double, and Czar Fleischman delivered an RBI single. Rodriguez then added the decisive blow with a two-RBI single through the left side, pushing CSUSM in control at 4-0.
Cardenas came on in relief and shut the door with 1 ⅔ hitless innings to finish off the shutout and secure the regional title for CSUSM.
“Jordan was amazing and really hit her spots. It was precision pitching,” Robinson said. “They made an adjustment late, so we thought making a pitching change would throw them off.”
CSUSM will host Biola University in the NCAA Division II West Super Regional in a best-of-three series May 21 and 22 at CSUSM Softball Field, with a berth in the NCAA Division II World Series on the line.
“Biola is a really good team,” Robinson said. “They have really good pitching and some really good hitters. They are a very solid opponent.”
