WHITTIER, Calif. (Mar. 8, 2025) – The Whittier College softball team showed last week's SCIAC disappointment is now firmly in the rear view mirror thanks to their performance this weekend against the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. The Poets hosted the Panthers for a two-game series on Saturday, winning both games via Mercy Rule with a combined score of 23-2.
Game 1: Whittier 10, Pitt-Bradford 2
While for the most part they have shown themselves to have a big inning or two in them on a per-game basis, the Poets showed on Saturday they could produce consistently throughout a single game. They scored runs in every single inning to overwhelm the Panthers. They also showed they could carry over the power from yesterday's sweep of Susquehanna University. The second inning saw senior second baseman
Arianna Salazar (San Diego, Calif. / Clairemont / University of Saint Katherine | San Diego Mesa College) smack a bases-clearing double. Salazar went 2-for-3 on the game, boosting her season average to .429 on the year.
Whittier also showed great patience at the plate, drawing six walks out of the Panthers. Senior first baseman
Sydnee Verlin (Moscow, Idaho / Moscow / University of Saint Katherine | Folsom Lake College) achieved one of her two RBIs of the game on a first-inning walk, and the Poets were able to play small ball effectively, showing they can generate offense in every possible way. Junior pitcher
Bella Peinado (Ventura, Calif. / Ventura) pitched a 69-pitch complete game, holding Pitt-Bradford to just two runs on six total base runners.
Game 2: Whittier 13, Pitt-Bradford 0
Whittier's stars showed up for the final game of the weekend. Five different player finished with multiple hits as the Poets nearly made their way through the order twice between the first two innings of the game. Freshman catcher
Mariah Rodriguez (Barstow, Calif. / Barstow) cemented herself as a SCIAC Newcomer of the Year contender, homering on back-to-back at-bats. Her second home run in particular was a moon shot over the center field fence and put her team up 5-0. She collected four RBIs in total and raised her average for the season to .500 with 16 hits in 32 at-bats.
Rodriguez was not the only Poet to go yard in Game 2. Senior
Maya Palos (Monterey Park, Calif. / Schurr), who started at catcher in the second game of the day, hit her second home run in as many days into left center field. While she missed the scoreboard this time, she now owns half as many home runs as she had last year less than a third of the way into the season. Whittier's backstop tandem helped create a 6-0 lead for the Poets through just the first two innings of the game, and seven more runs would follow over the next three. As huge as Palos and Rodriguez have been this weekend, nobody is arguably seeing the ball as well as junior shortstop
Kelly Nutter (Carlsbad, Calif. / La Costa Canyon / Cal State San Marcos | Palomar College). Nutter hit over .700 over four games this weekend to boost her season average to an unbelievable .647. She also tallied four RBIs and two runs scored between the two games.
For the second game of the day, Peinado got the outing off, giving way to senior
Olivia Nunez (Placentia, Calif. / Valencia / Fullerton College). Nunez dominated the Panthers, throwing a pristine two-hitter with one strikeout in one of the cleanest games of her career. The win moved her to 2-0 on the season.
Head Coach Terry Schweikert and the Poets will be in for a sizeable workload this week, and will begin the week of Spring Break with games against Manhattanville University and Bethel University on Wednesday, Mar. 12.
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