Clemson Tournament Central Page
FULLERTON, Calif. – Cal State Fullerton is heading to the Clemson Regional hosted by the No. 16 National Seed, Clemson, to make their 31st NCAA Regional appearance. The Titans will be the third seed facing off against the second seed Auburn University at 2:30 p.m. PT on Friday to open up the weekend.
The Titans are coming to the Clemson Regional with a 33-19 overall record and received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.
The Titans offense is batting .255 as a team and has scored 185 runs this year. They're missing the 2022 Big West Field Player of the Year in Megan Delgadillo who tore her ACL in early March right before conference play started. All-First Team Big West member Hannah Becerra leads the Titans with 38 runs scored, 28 RBIs, and 8 home runs. Despite having a .256 overall batting average, Becerra led the team in conference with a .333 batting average. Big West honorable mention Alexa Neil leads the offense with a .289 batting average and 28 runs scored from the top of the lineup. Another Big West honorable mention Daisy Munoz is batting .288 with 20 RBIS and leads the team with 42 hits. Jessi Alcala is batting .260 with 22 RBIs and 21 runs scored. Deshea Hill came on late in the season but is batting .296 with 19 RBIs.
In the circle, the Titan pitching staff currently sports the 8th best ERA in the nation at 1.63 under the leadership of pitching coach Danielle O'Toole. The Big West Pitcher of the Year Myka Sutherlin leads the Titans staff with a 19-9 overall record. Sutherlin is 10th in the nation with 227 strikeouts and 16th in the country with a 1.30 ERA. She's no stranger to the big stage as she led the Titans in last year's regional win over LSU and has wins over Power-5 Teams such as Arizona, LSU, Northwestern, Oregon, Oregon State, and Ole Miss. She also closed out the Titan's win over Tennessee. Haley Rainey (9-5) is 27th in the country with a 1.47 ERA and Raci Miranda (4-5, 2.71 ERA) rounds out the Titan's pitching staff.
Fullerton's first opponent will be the No. 17 Auburn Tigers. The No. 17 Auburn Tigers are 40-17 overall and went 15-9 in SEC play. The Tigers finished in 3rd in the conference and were the No. 3 seed in the conference tournament where they defeated Ole Miss in the quarterfinals before being eliminated by South Carolina.
The Tigers are led offensively by All-SEC Second Team members Nelia Peralta (.336 BA, 38 Runs) and Denver Bryant (.324 BA). Bri Ellis (.282 BA, 40 RBIS, 12 HRs), and Lindsey Garcia (.267 BA, 40 RBIs, 10 HRs) also led the Tigers run producing effort. The Tigers pitching staff is highlighted by SEC Pitcher of the Year Maddie Penta (25-5, 1.10 ERA, 287 K's). Annabelle Widra (9-5, 2.75 ERA) and Shelby Lowe (5-6, 2.91 ERA) round out the pitching staff.
The other two teams in the regional will play the game before the Titans and the Tigers on Friday evening. The No. 1 Clemson Tigers and the No. 4 UNC Greensboro Spartans The Titans haven't played Clemson or UNC Greensboro before and it will be the first meeting for the Titans against either of those teams.
2023 NCAA Division I Softball Championship
Regionals - Double-Elimination
McWhorter Stadium - Clemson, S.C.
All Games on ESPN Networks
Friday, May 19, 2023
Game 1: Clemson vs UNCG – 12 a.m. PT (ESPNU)
Game 2: Auburn vs Cal State Fullerton 2:30 a.m. PT (ESPN+)
WATCH | LIVE STATS
Saturday, May 20, 2023
Game 3: 10 a.m. PT - Winners of Game 1 and Game 2
Game 4: 12:30 p.m. PT - Losers of Game 1 and Game 2
Game 5: 3 p.m. PT - Loser of Game 3 and Winner of Game 4
Sunday, May 21, 2023
Game 6: 9 a.m. PT - Winner of Game 3 and Game 5
Game 7: 11:30 a.m. PT - *if necessary
WATCH THE TITANS ON ESPN+
Titans fans can now watch home contests exclusively on ESPN+. Cal State Fullerton has built a top-tier production studio to give the viewers an ESPN quality production for Titans Athletics. Additionally, all schools in the Big West Conference are committed to producing ESPN quality streams which will allow fans to watch the Titans on ESPN+ for all road conference games.
FOLLOW THE TITANS!
Fans can keep up with the latest in Titan Athletics by following us on Facebook (Facebook/FullertonTitans), Twitter (@FullertonTitans) Instagram (FullertonTitans). In addition, the softball team has established its own Twitter (fullerton_sb) and Instagram accounts (fullerton_sb)