LODI — Last Sunday was ‘breezy’ afternoon in Lodi.

Sacramento State softball, playing in their first fall ball tournament of the offseason, split four games, losing their first Saturday two but coming back to win two on a windy Sunday afternoon.

“These games are important for us so we can see where we’re at and what we need to work on,” senior pitcher Brianne Ferguson, nicknamed “Breezy,” said.

In Sac State’s first game Sunday, Ferguson went the distance, pitching a shutout as well as accounting for a run, tripling in the bottom of the fifth inning and eventually being driven in. For a position player accustomed to three or four at-bats a game, this could be considered commonplace. But for Ferguson, who has six official at-bats as a Hornet, this one was huge.

“I’ve been working so hard at hitting, I just really want to be able to help myself out and take pressure off of everyone else,” Ferguson said. “I think I was smiling the entire way around the base paths.”

And come this spring, Ferguson may have a lot more to smile about. The Pacific Coast Softball conference, of which Sac State is a charter member, was just awarded an automatic qualifier to the NCAA Regional; this means the winner of the conference, regardless of overall record, is automatically entered into the post season.

“Now we don’t have to worry about our record and, ‘are we gonna get in?'” Ferguson said. “Now all we have to do is win conference and we’re in.”

That feat has been easier said than done in each of the first two seasons of Pacific Coast action for the Hornets; after great starts, Sac State has suffered horrendous finishes.

In 2003, the loss of one of the hottest bats, then-junior shortstop Amy Walter, in the second series of the conference season doomed the Hornets and they went 4-8 down the stretch after starting out 25-19. Walter, after her senior season in 2004 returns as a volunteer assistant to the 2005 squad and will be largely responsible for athletic training.

Last season Ferguson and company were in first place in conference going into the final two series of the season only to come away with eight straight losses to end the year with a 32-28 record. As 2004 champion Santa Clara celebrated on the Hornets’ home diamond on May 2nd the frustration wore on the home team’s faces like masks.

“In the post season meetings I had with all the players last year there was a lot of frustration expressed, a lot of emotion,” head coach Kathy Strahan, entering her 13th season in the Sac State dugout, said. “But so far the attitude has been very positive, the returnees have really welcomed in the new players.”

According to the pre-season roster, the Hornets will dress seven new players including four freshmen. Amongst the frosh squad is Teri Ann Caoagan from Salinas, who drove in three runs in Sunday’s competition in Lodi.

“Teri Ann was a hitting machine today,” Strahan said. “I offered her a walk-on spot and said, ‘OK, kid show us what you can do and she responded.”

One of the Hornets’ four senior leaders is also impressed by the overall performance of the incoming flock.

“I’m so glad this is the team I get to play on as a senior,” Ferguson said. “We all set the tone this weekend … we will work hard.

“I just want to win.”