{"id":674490,"date":"2026-03-22T20:36:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T20:36:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/674490\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T20:36:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T20:36:15","slug":"cal-state-san-marcos-softball-team-rode-long-win-streak-to-top-of-national-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/674490\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal State San Marcos softball team rode long win streak to top of national poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"a<\/a>Cal State San Marcos\u2019 top-ranked softball team has had a lot of reasons to celebrate this season. (Photo courtesy of CSUSM Athletics)<\/p>\n

Cal State San Marcos senior pitcher Jordan Hill \u2014 ranked second in the nation in NCAA Division II softball with a 0.62 ERA \u2014 and senior infielder Jillian Albayati \u2014 a right-handed hitter batting .548, ranked sixth nationally \u2014 are glad to be on the same team.<\/p>\n

If they weren\u2019t, Hill knows exactly how she\u2019d approach facing Albayati at the plate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hitting her,\u201d said Hill, an 8-2 right-hander, with a laugh. \u201cWe scrimmage sometimes, and I swear, if I throw anything elevated, it\u2019s gone every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The respect goes both ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe dominates even during scrimmages,\u201d said Albayati, who leads the team with eight home runs and made headlines in 2024 as the first woman to play baseball at Cal State San Marcos \u2014 and just the second NCAA athlete to play in both a softball and baseball game on the same day. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy. She has this rise ball that nobody all season has been able to figure out how to hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cougars<\/a> head coach A.J. Robinson, in his second year with the program, called it a \u201cdream matchup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got two of the top players in the country going head to head in that situation, so it\u2019s really hard to predict an outcome,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would be a lot of fun to watch that battle, because they\u2019re both so good. I wouldn\u2019t want to call the pitches \u2014 I\u2019d let Jordan decide how
she wants to attack Jill. And Jill can attack anybody. I\u2019d love to see that after the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

After holding the No. 1 spot much of the season, the Cougars are currently ranked No. 2 in the NFCA Division II national poll<\/a>, behind West Texas A&M. CSUSM has posted a 24-4 overall record, including 6-2 in CCAA play, and rode a 20-game win streak that stretched from late January through mid-March. That streak ended March 13 with a 1-0 loss at Chico State.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a really good fall, played some Division I teams, and kind of whooped on them,\u201d Albayati said. \u201cWe\u2019re a young team, so that really surprised me. Last year we were older, and I\u2019d say we were performing even better than we did in the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I found out the rest of my pitching staff was all freshmen, that was definitely a little nerve-wracking,\u201d Hill said. \u201cBut once we got into practice, and during those fall games and the first couple in the spring, you could tell the freshmen were stepping up. Even though they don\u2019t have as much experience, they\u2019re still able to get the job done, which is really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Albayati had a blunt response to the winning streak ending. \u201cObviously it sucks to lose,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For Robinson, the silver lining was easy to find.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best thing about it is, you know, I\u2019m a little superstitious, so I can finally go and get my haircut,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cI don\u2019t think they really understood that I was superstitious when I told them, so I kind of had to explain it. But it wasn\u2019t really stressful. I think we know\u2014you play
50-plus games in a season, you\u2019re not going to beat everyone. We just have to learn and self-reflect from a couple of losses.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Marcos bounced back the following day with a 12-2 win, fueled by Albayati\u2019s three hits and four RBIs and a strong outing from freshman pitcher Daleah Cardenas, who improved to 9-0 on the season. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really didn\u2019t have much of a negative reaction,\u201d Albayati said. \u201cWe won the next day and I think that really shows how we took that loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso maybe [a feeling of] relief,\u201d Hill added. \u201cBut everyone knew at some point there was going to be a loss coming. So it wasn\u2019t disappointing that it ended\u2014more like celebrating that we got to that point in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the early-season success, the Cougars say their focus is on staying present and avoiding the grandiose.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been doing this entire season is just looking forward to the next series, the next game,\u201d Albayati said.<\/p>\n

Hill added, \u201cWhen you start your season as well as we did, sometimes people can get very big-picture, thinking, \u2018Oh, postseason, blah, blah, blah.\u2019 But before every game, we always talk about one inning, one pitch at a time. Keeping it simple is key, because we can\u2019t have those big postseason moments if we\u2019re not winning these games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think just the consistency of every day,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s practice or a game, we\u2019re stacking good days on top of good days and staying within the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Key contributions have also come from pitchers Madison Cabrera (2.26 ERA) and Hailey Shiflett (2.47 ERA). Offensively, Jordan Elias (.377), Rae D\u2019Amato (.370) and Angelina Rodriguez (.381, 2 HR), along with Czar Fleischman, who has added four home runs and 18 RBIs. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re really hungry this year, and it\u2019s great,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cI\u2019m really happy for them, because, you know, we\u2019re living in a world where it\u2019s tough to be on the bench. They\u2019ve done a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can pull someone off the bench to pinch hit, and they\u2019ll still be a hard out matter what,\u201d Albayati said. \u201cI think everybody on this team steps up in different ways, and it really works for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

CSUSM swept four games against San Francisco State in a home series that concluded Saturday. Next up is a four-game set at Cal State Monterey Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cal State San Marcos\u2019 top-ranked softball team has had a lot of reasons to celebrate this season. (Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":674491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,284447,276,3549,7264,46399,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-674490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-america","tag-ca","tag-cal-state-san-marcos","tag-california","tag-san-diego","tag-sandiego","tag-softball","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116274750165334764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}