Sacramento State softball ended its 2014 season in a loss to the Idaho State Bengals at the Big Sky Conference tournament in Pocatello, Idaho on Friday night. The Hornets finished the season with a 25-21 record and 12-4 regular season conference record.

At the end of the regular season, Sac State’s conference record was good enough for the No. 2 seed in the tournament. However, an opening round loss to Southern Utah University spoiled the momentum.

Sac State rebounded in the second game on Friday in which it beat the University of Northern Colorado 4-0 when junior pitcher Caitlin Brooks pitched a near no-hitter before allowing the only hit, which came in the top of the seventh inning.

The Hornets faced off against Idaho State in their elimination game, but were trounced 10-7. However, Sac State made it interesting in the top of seventh when the Hornets scored two runs before a fly ball to center field, off of junior shortstop Paige Castro, ended the game.

Although the loss to Idaho State on Friday night was not the outcome this year’s team wanted, the players still considered it a successful season. With departures last season from Emily McCormick, Kelli Frye, Lauren Blair and Molly Smith, it left a few holes on both defense and offense.

Two players stepped up this season for first year head coach Lori Perez to fill those spots, freshman third baseman Alexis Martinez and sophomore first baseman Sasha Margulies.

Martinez finished the season with .303 RBIs, two home runs and 26 RBIs, while Margulies led the team with an average of .349, a home run and was second on the team with 24 RBIs.

Margulies said the team will take advantage of the early off season summer workouts.

“We are given access to the batting cage to use anytime we want,” Margulies said. “It will be nice to use it to keep sharp throughout the summer.”

Now that the season is over, Perez has a long checklist the coaching staff put together of needs to be completed before the 2015 season.

Sac State loses four more players this year as seniors catcher Paris Prado, second baseman Yesenia Alcala, pitcher Taylor Stroud and with junior shortstop Paige Castro. All four played a considerable portion of this season as role players or starters.

In her last year as a Hornet, Stroud went 7-6 and had a 3.31 ERA as the No. 2 starter.

With her career done at Sac State, Stroud is ready to focus on making sure she is ready to graduate later this month.

“Now that we are done this season we are focusing on making sure we pass our finals and catch up with our school work,” Stroud said.

If there was a time that Perez would like to have back this season to re-do would be the game against Idaho State on April 12 in which she felt her team had a win taken away from them.

With two-outs and a 3-2 count she saw Stroud pitched it down the middle for a called ball. The result gave new life the Bengal offense when shortstop Hailey Breakwell sent a pitch to the burm in left field.

“That pitch she [Stroud] threw I still think about it a lot, because of how it affected both teams this season,” Perez said. “If it was a called third strike we would have been hosting, but that is not what the umpire called.”

Although Sac State did not win a Big Sky tournament title, it did crowd the Big Sky all-Conference team list. 11 players in total were named to the all-conference teams on Wednesday before the tournament started.

Looking ahead to next season, Sac State will have four incoming freshman which will add more depth to the already talented roster. Perez and the coaching staff recruited a pitcher Celina Mathias, second baseman Zamari Hinton, shortstop Marissa Maligad and third baseman Cassidy Martin.

Perez said there is a lot to look forward to next season, with eight of the 11 players that were named to the all-Conference teams.

“We have a strong core of seniors and juniors, along with a hungry sophomore class and talented freshman class heading into next season,” Perez said. “I am excited to see how this team we have now continues to improve and see where it leads to next season.”