Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” roars on an old boom box near the practice field.

Players sing a long as they go through drills, then the CD skips. The voice of junior catcher Joanna O’Neill can be heard carrying the tune without the backing of the track.

Last year the Sacramento State softball team’s season played out like a good heavy metal song. It faded in slowly, roared to a crescendo and eventually faded to silence.

This year coach Kathy Strahan and company hope to play right through the schedule, their toughest in years, without skipping a beat.

“I felt like we peaked last season when we were 10-2 in conference with eight games to play,” Strahan said. “We were right there in the thick of things and it all fell apart.”

Sac State began the 2004 season with a modest 4-9 record through the first month of the season.

Then came a leap day sweep of San Jose State last Feb. 29 that began a blistering seven-week stretch in which the Hornets went 28-11 with eight of the losses coming to teams ranked or receiving votes in the USA Today/National Fastpitch Coaches Association Top 25 poll.

Then the music stopped.

Following a 3-1 series victory over Portland State that put the Hornets on top of the conference with eight games to play, Sac State did not win another game.

Then a junior, the Hornets returning ace Brianne Ferguson was not available to pitch the final eight games of the season last year because of a freak injury to her hand, which was slammed in the dugout’s bathroom door before the Hornets’ series with Portland State last April.

Then-senior Nicole Deatherage and freshman Jennifer Fryou combined to go 0-8 against Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara, the top two teams at the time, to end the year.

The Hornets were forced to watch Santa Clara, on the strength of pitcher Jaime Forman-Lau, who pitched in all four games of the clinching series, celebrate their conference championship on the field at Shea Stadium in disbelief.

The pitfall of last year’s club was its lack of hitting. The Hornets hit a paltry .232 last season contrasted with a 1.52 team ERA in the collegiate top 30.

“It was obvious we needed to make a change,” Strahan said. “We’ve changed our team philosophy on hitting and have taken a more unified approach as coaching staff.”

So far the team is off to a 3-2 start after completing the Cal Poly Mustang Roundup in San Luis Obispo last weekend.

The team hit .222 over the weekend but junior centerfielder Lindy Winkler hit a .438 clip in five games, scoring three runs. That effort was good enough for a Pacific Coast Softball Confernce Player of the Week award.

“We’re really excited this year to get to the next level,” Winkler said before the team departed last week.

Ferguson pitched two complete-game shutouts allowing six hits and striking out 17 hitters in 14 innings of work. For her efforts she was named Pacific Coast Softball Conference Pitcher of the Week.

“My goal for this year was to drop my ERA,” Ferguson said before the team departed for San Luis Obispo last Thursday, “But I’d really love to win 20 games too.”

Junior transfer pitcher Nikki Cinque went 1-1 over the weekend with 3.00 ERA while striking out seven batters and allowing 14 hits in 14 innings of work.

The Hornets come home to open their home schedule against causeway rival UC Davis 1 p.m. today at Shea Stadium.

“I think (Davis) will be a competitive rival for us,” Strahan said. “It just makes sense to schedule them more now that they’ve moved up to Division I after competing well at the Division II level.”