BALTIMORE – Senior
Vanessa Carrizosa tossed a shutout in her 50
th career complete game as the Coppin State softball team completed a three-game sweep with a 9-0 MEAC victory over Norfolk State on Sunday afternoon at CSU Softball Complex. The Eagles improved to 19-16 overall and broke a school-record with their 14
th conference win in 18 games.
CSU's 14 conference victories this season surpasses the 13 that it won in 2012. The 19 overall victories is the third-most in school history.
Making her final appearance at home, Carrizosa allowed just four hits and struck out two in her seventh career shutout, and third clean sheet of the season. Carrizosa retired 11-straight Spartans at one point before a two-out single in the fifth. She closed out the frame with a strikeout and Coppin scored a pair of runs in the bottom half of inning to run-rule Norfolk State.
Manaia Fonoti, Seryna Esparza and
Xzylia Maravilla all had multi-hit games with Fonoti and Esparza scoring two times each.
Brooklyn Tapusoa had three RBI with a two-run single and a sacrifice fly while
Giselle Ulloa also had two-run single while also drawing a walk.
With three doubles in the game, the Eagles now have 58 on the season which broke a school-record set in the 2022 season. Tapusoa's sacrifice fly also gave the Eagles 18 on the season which is also a school-record.
Norfolk State got a pair of hits to start the game, but Carrizosa settled down and got a groundout and a pair of foul outs to first base to get out of the inning. Both teams went scoreless over the first two innings before Coppin erupted for five runs in the third on six hits and a pair of NSU errors.
Celeste Gonzales recorded a one-out double before getting to third on a hard single to right by Fonoti. Esparza laid down a bunt single, surprising the defense, to load the bases before Ulloa and Tapusoa had back-to-back two-run singles. After a pitching change, Tapusoa scored the fifth run as
Emily Quintero reached on an error.
Carrizosa got a 1-2-3 fourth inning and received two insurance runs in the bottom half, thanks to a sacrifice fly by Tapusoa before Esparza and Ulloa combined for a double steal.
Norfolk State stranded a runner in the fifth and Coppin wrapped up the game as Maravilla and
Aniyah Haley scored as Fonoti reached on a throwing error with two outs.
Coppin is now alone in second place in the MEAC standings, just two games back of first-place Morgan State. The crosstown rivals close out the regular season with a three-game series in East Baltimore on April 27-28. CSU will play a makeup doubleheader at University of Delaware on April 23 starting at 4 pm.
