Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 SEASIDE – It is tough to be a quality opponent when your bats go silent. Even with posting only 10 hits in 14 innings, No. 1-ranked Humboldt State posted its second split with Cal State Monterey Bay on Saturday.
 
In the top of the seventh, Julie Pena laced a leadoff double and scored on an Alison McKibbon run-scoring single with the game-winning run for a 2-1 opening Lumberjacks victory. The Otters' Lindsey Clarkson shut down the visiting bats with a four-hitter to help her team to a 4-0 late contest win.
 
"Monterey Bay is a good team and I expect to see them again in the conference tournament. We didn't hit like we should have today," noted HSU head coach Shelli Sarchett. "Monterey has a tough 1-2 pitching combo but we know we are better than we showed today."
 
McKibbon proved to be the HSU top hitter of the day with three singles, while Pena and Tonya Walker lined doubles.
 
Game 1
 
In the top of the first, Walker walked, was sacrificed to second and scored on a catching error made on a Dani Randall single.
 
The Otters would knot it a 1-1 in the home first.
 
Pena plated the opener's only other score off McKibbon's hit.
 
Katie Obbema stranded the bases loaded when she induced a fly out to right field to end the game for her eighth pitching win of the year in nine decisions. She allowed only five hits and one earned run, while fanning three.
 
McKibbon added a second single for a 2-for-3 contest. Pena and Walker doubled with Randall and Darian Harris lining a hit apiece.
 
Game 2
 
HSU could not take advantage of a Randall single and Hannah Williams walk to open the contest to strand both runners on base.
 
In the second at bat, the Jacks saw Pena walk and McKibbon single only to have the same fate and leave two more runners on the bags.
 
The Otters did nothing of the sort in their second offensive opportunity.
 
Nicole Pires lined into a double play to right field, but Cori Reinhardt, who had a leadoff single, ran home for a 1-0 home advantage.
 
CSU Monterey Bay added two more tallies in the third and one in the fourth for a 4-0 margin.
 
Over the final three innings, HSU managed only a seventh-inning Sarah Fox leadoff single as the only runner to reach base on Clarkson to complete the shutout.
 
HSU totaled six runners left on base and was the first of 17 games of the season without an extra base hit.
 
The Jacks four hits were all singles with one each by Harris, Randall, Fox and McKibbon.
 
Liz Perez picked up the loss to drop to 3-2. Freshman Madison Williams fired two scoreless innings to end the day.
 
HSU will complete its six-game weekend with two contests versus Dominican on Sunday held at San Francisco State's softball field.