April 9, 2007

Irvine, Calif. - After leading the Tigers to a 3-0 series sweep of Big West Conference foe UC Santa Barbara last week, the sophomore duo of Casey Goldsand (Scottsdale, Ariz.) and Chelsea Engle (Folsom, Calif.) earned Player and Pitcher of the Week honors for the first time in their careers. The duo shared the honors with Lauren Lupinetti of Cal State Fullerton and Emily Hively of Cal Poly, who were also named co-player and pitcher of the week. The three teams, Pacific, Cal State Fullerton and Cal Poly have combined to go 15-0 to start conference play.

For the week, Goldsand came through for the Tigers in all five games as she led the team with five RBI while hitting .400 (6-for-15). Over the weekend against UCSB, Goldsand led the Tigers on two separate occasions to two of their three wins as she posted the game winning RBI in Pacific's first and last wins of the weekend. She led the way with a team high three RBI against the Gauchos with one RBI coming in each of the three contests. No player was more valuable at the plate to Pacific in its 3-0 conference start than Goldsand as she anchored the Tigers' bottom half of the order as the top of the order struggled.

In the circle, Engle continued her brilliant stretch of pitching of late as she picked up two wins and a save over the week. In the Tigers' only loss of the week, Engle dueled Robin Mackin and the No. 24/25 Fresno State Bulldogs for six and a third innings. Despite the loss, she rebounded to pick up her first save of the season in the second game against the Bulldogs. In addition to her play against Fresno State, Engle was dominate in her two conference starts against UC Santa Barbara, throwing two complete games including an eight inning complete game, to lead the Tigers to a 3-0 sweep of the Gauchos. In her second start of the weekend against UCSB, Engle was practically untouchable, relinquishing just two hits while shutting out the Gauchos. Engle improved her record to 15-9 on the season over the week, ranking her No. 1 in the conference in wins.

The Tigers will be back in action on Saturday, April 14 as they take on UC Riverside in a Big West doubleheader at Bill Simoni Field. The first game is slated to begin at 12:00 pm.