The final week of the regular season saw lots of jockeying for position and final last gasp efforts to make the four-team field for the first Pacific West Conference Softball Championships. Hawaii Pacific won a pair of huge games over fellow contender Chaminade to grab a tournament spot and the Sharks are the Team of the Week. HPU pitcher Taylor Thompson threw zeros at the Silverswords in one of those games and is the Pitcher of the Week. Academy of Art had a few candidates for Player of the Week after a high scoring weekend, but the nod goes to Cailee Grayhorse-Pupecki who hit three home runs for the Urban Knights as they won three of four games to close the season.

2023 Results/Schedule
2023 Standings
2023 Statistics

PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Academy of Art’s Cailee Grayhorse-Pupecki, UTL, Jr., Los Angeles                                                                            
ART U junior utility player Cailee Grayhorse-Pupecki had a big final weekend as the Urban Knights wrapped up its 2023 season. The Los Angeles native hit .375 (6-for-15) with a double, triple and three home runs. He drove home four runs and scored five times. On the final day of the season during a doubleheader with Holy Names, Grayhorse-Pupecki went 5-for-10 with four runs, four RBI and three round-trippers. Counting their sweep of HNU and a win prior to that over Dominican, the Urban Knights snapped a 12-game losing streak and finished the season by winning three in a row.

PITCHER OF THE WEEK: Hawaii Pacific’s Taylor Thompson, RHP, Soph., Phoenix, Arizona                                                                            
In a win-or-you are done situation, HPU’s Taylor Thompson helped keep her team alive with a shutout of rival Chaminade, 1-0. Taylor went seven innings and gave up three scratch hits, none of them for extra bases. She walked three and struck out eight on 108 pitches. The Arizona native improved to 8-14 on the season in her second best outing of the year—her first being a two-hit shutout of conference champ Concordia earlier in the season.

SHARKS CIRCLE AND SECURE TOURNAMENT BERTH: The PacWest Team of the Week is the HAWAII PACIFIC SHARKS. Needing two wins and a little help to jump into the conference tournament, the Sharks got both. Hawaii Pacific won two tense games against rival Chaminade, 1-0 and 4-2 to knock out one of the contenders for the fourth spot, while Dominican dropped a game to Academy of Art that helped HPU slip by the Penguins. Taylor Thompson (see above) was dominate in the pitcher’s circle to get the 1-0 win. In the second game, the Sharks built a 4-0 lead into the sixth inning and then held off Chaminade despite two late runs by the Silverswords. The Sharks beat Chaminade four times in the month of April to help secure their fourth place spot with a 17-15 record. They will come to La Mirada 22-30 overall.

FINAL FOUR SET FOR FREEDOM FIELD: The field is set and the four teams are arriving for Wednesday-Friday’s Pacific West Conference Championship. The double elimination tournament features two games on Wednesday, three on Thursday and one or two on Championship Friday. Day One (Wednesday) looks like this:
*2 pm--#1 seed Concordia (42-10) vs. #4 seed Hawaii Pacific (22-30)
*5 pm--#2 seed Biola (27-20) vs. #3 seed Azusa Pacific (30-22)
Thursday’s game times are 11 am, 2 pm and 5 pm, with Friday starting at noon and 3 pm (if necessary).
For news of every kind regarding the PacWest Championships, go to the Tournament Central page here.
 
GOLDEN EAGLES ARE WEST REGION’S TOP RANKED TEAM: The first official NCAA West Region poll came out last week, with Concordia sitting securely in the top slot. Biola (eighth) and Azusa Pacific (ninth) are bubble teams at this point, with the next ranking coming out this Wednesday (May 3). Eight teams from the West will earn berths in the regional. The winner of the conference tournaments in the PacWest, GNAC, and CCAA will each receive automatic bids, and the next five spots will be at-large selections. The top 2 teams will host four-team regionals, with the winners at each site meeting in a Super Regional to determine who will advance to the NCAA Softball Championships, May 25-29 in Chattanooga, Tenn. As of last week, here were the rankings (with last week’s D-II records listed). (1) Concordia 41-9, (2) Sonoma State 33-8, (3) CS San Bernardino 28-17, (4) CS Dominguez Hills 27-15, (5) CS San Marcos 24-17, (6) Northwest Nazarene 29-15, (7) San Francisco State 26-20, (8) Biola 27-18, (9) Azusa Pacific 28-21, (10) CS Monterey Bay 26-22).
 
PACWEST NEWS AND NOTES: Academy of Art’s Audrey Allen joined teammate Cailee Grayhorse-Pupecki in having a monster offensive weekend with a .667 batting average, five RBI and four doubles…Dominican’s Melissa Garcia hit .538 with a pair of doubles…Garcia’s teammate Shelby Keltner did everything she could to keep her team’s hopes alive, winning three games in the pitcher’s circle while also hitting .375 at the plate…Abie Nowak of Biola had five RBI in two games…APU’s Katie Korstrom shut out conference champion Concordia with a seven-inning gem, allowing just five hits while striking out five…Chaminade’s Jaeda Cabunoc almost matched HPU’s Taylor Thompson pitch-for-pitch, only allowing one run on a sacrifice fly in the first inning and four total hits…In the final conference standings, Dominican (16-15) finished just one-half game behind Hawaii Pacific (17-15) for the fourth spot in the conference tournament.