Due in large part to Jolene Henderson’s healthy return to the circle, the Bears (36-17) finally resemble the team they were during their 24-game winning streak in pre-conference play. With its Pac-12 struggles now just a remnant of the past, Cal feels like it is finally coming together.

“I think we’re firing on all cylinders right now,” said sophomore shortstop Cheyenne Cordes. “We’re all getting healthy. We’re all on the come-up.”

Starting on Friday in Ann Arbor, Mich., Cal will open postseason play in the NCAA Softball Tournament Regionals against Central Michigan (33-18). The winner of the series will go on to face the victor of the eighth-seeded Michigan (45-10) and Valparaiso (34-25) matchup.

In a double-elimination style tournament, the winner of the Michigan Regional will advance to the Super Regional round, where it will face off against the winner of the LSU Regional.

Just two hours from Ann Arbor, CMU should hold a home-field advantage over Cal, even though the regional location is considered neutral for both squads. CMU currently boasts a team batting average of .286, led by senior outfielder Macy Merchant and her .415 batting average.

The Bears’ hopes will rest on the shoulders and the injured left knee of Henderson. Despite missing six games due to injury, the All-American still led the Pac-12 with 35 starts, 28 wins, 262.2 innings pitched and an ERA of 1.20. However, with the inconsistencies of Cal’s offensive attack, Henderson can’t afford any major slip-ups. The Bears finished the season with a team batting average of .267 — the worst in the conference.

“I think it all has to do with the lineup being relaxed,” Cordes said. “We added some unnecessary pressure on to ourselves.”

Cal’s biggest obstacle on its path to the LSU Super Regional should be Michigan. The Wolverines cruised to a 20-2 finish in the Big 10 behind the .399 batting average of first baseman and catcher Caitlin Blanchard and the 1.81 ERA of Sara Driesenga. Undefeated at home, Michigan holds a sizeable advantage over the Bears and their 8-8 road record.

Last season, Cal hosted the regional and emerged as the winners. But this season, it doesn’t enter as the favorites but instead as the underdogs.

“There’s definitely somewhat of a different feel,” Cordes said. “Last year, it was more of an expectation (to win). We still expect to win, but we’ve gone through the struggle (this season).”

Despite the Bears having to battle several injuries this season, Cordes stressed the importance of ending the season on a positive and healthy note. After injuries to Henderson, utility player Victoria Jones and Cordes herself, the Bears are finally healthy again. And after going winless in a three-week span, the Bears finally defeated Washington last Saturday.

“We had never had a nine-game losing streak,” Cordes said. “For us to end on that winning note was a big deal. We even called it the start of our winning streak.”

Sean Wagner-McGough covers softball. Contact him at swagnermcgough@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.

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The Cal softball team (35-12, 9-9 Pac-12) was swept in humbling fashion by Arizona State (42-7, 13-5 Pac-12) this weekend, losing 10-2, 11-0 and 5-3.

Head coach Diane Ninemire declined to comment following Sunday’s series finale, stating through a spokesperson that she would rather have her players speak for their performance.

Missing staff ace Jolene Henderson because of a knee injury, Cal was forced to rely on Nisa Ontiveros and Nikki Owens. Before Friday, the two pitchers had combined for seven career starts.

All it took was one inning for the Bears to learn that life without Henderson isn’t a pretty one. With the All-American watching from the dugout, Ontiveros surrendered six runs in the first inning of the first game on Friday.

“(My pitches) were up in the zone…just a lot of plate,” Ontiveros said. “They took advantage of it.”

Owens stepped into the circle to replace Ontiveros, giving up four earned runs in just 4.1 innings of work.

Because Cal only managed to score two runs and was trailing by eight runs, the game was called after five innings.

“We have much more potential than we’re showing,” Cheyenne Cordes said.

The last time the Cal softball team gave up at least 10 runs in a single game was two years ago against Pacific. The last time the Bears were run-ruled was against Kentucky that same season.

Owens got the start in the second game, but it wasn’t an improvement from Ontiveros’ start. Lasting just two innings, Owens gave up eight earned runs.

After the first two games of the series, the explosive Arizona State lineup was hitting .444 in the series.

“I have a lot of faith things are only going to get better from here,” Cordes said when asked about the pitching performances of Ontiveros and Owens.

Hoping the third time was the charm, Cal sent Ontiveros back out to start game three. After surrendering one run in the first inning, the Bears took their first lead in the series off home runs by Breana Kostreba and Vanessa Alvarez in the second inning.

The wheels fell off in the third inning though, as Arizona State regained the lead with a four-run rally. Cordes botched two tough ground balls in the inning, that, if fielded cleanly, would have gotten Ontiveros out of the inning.

“Sometimes you get bad hops,” Cordes said. “If I could go back and do it differently, I wouldn’t.”

Still, Cal had its chances to get back into the game. The Bears loaded the bases in the fifth with two outs, but Lindsey Ziegenhirt just missed a grand slam when she flew out to deep center.

In the bottom of the seventh, Cal cut the lead to two, but with two outs and the tying runner at the plate, Ziegenhirt once again just missed going yard. This time, the senior pulled the ball just to the left of the foul ball pole in left field, before eventually grounding into a fielder’s choice, rendering the sweep complete.

Sean Wagner-McGough covers softball. Contact him at swagnermcgough@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.

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The words hung in the air, slicing through the silence. Tracy Cordes took a moment to absorb what the coach had said to her. Before she had a chance to respond, he continued.

“I think we need to move her somewhere else.”

Just seconds ago, Tracy was on the sidelines watching her daughter, Cheyenne, take part in softball nationals in Tennessee. She watched as Cheyenne smoothly fielded grounders from the shortstop position, just like how Tracy had taught her years ago.

Now, one of the coaches was telling her that her daughter’s dream of starting as a shortstop for a Pac-12 school was nothing more than a dream.

“Are you serious?” Tracy asked the coach. “Did you really just say that about my 13-year-old daughter?”

When Tracy broke the news to Cheyenne, Tracy watched as she took it in. Just like her mother, Cheyenne was in a state of disbelief.

To this day, his words are seared into Cheyenne’s memory.

“She basically said, ‘I’ll show him,’” Tracy says. “Because she thought that she could do that. She just knew what she wanted and went after it.”

Growing up in Fairfield, Calif., Cheyenne was surrounded by softball. With a mom who worked as both a high school P.E. teacher and a softball coach, she was never far from the game.

Tracy embraced the role of Cheyenne’s personal softball and life coach, all while compensating for the absence of Cheyenne’s father.

It was high school, and Cheyenne was playing in a tournament in Colorado. With her mom on the sidelines, Cheyenne was hit in the face by a softball so hard that her eye was practically swollen shut.

Tracy calmly walked up to her daughter, asked if she was okay and if she needed a Tylenol.

“She just toughened me up to the max, so when things like that happen, they don’t really affect me,” Cheyenne says. “Not just on the field, but in school. She would just always push me.”

But her family’s financial circumstances meant that she couldn’t afford to go to college, leaving a full athletic scholarship as the only route to her Pac-12 dreams.

Meanwhile, Cheyenne took care of what she was in control of — performing on the field and forming connections with college coaches.

Beginning in middle school, Cheyenne joined the Lady Magic travel ball team. Lady Magic was one of the best travel ball teams in California, putting Cheyenne on the map of college softball coaches.

Seeking a way to connect with her potential coaches, Cheyenne began emailing them on a weekly basis detailing her successes and failures on the diamond. She emailed them so much that even she thought she was annoying.

“It’s typical of most softball players to email coaches, but not to do it at the level I did,” says Cheyenne. “I just wanted them to know that I wanted it more than they wanted me.”

Her persistence paid off. When Cheyenne arrived at softball camps run by college coaches, they told her that her personality matched her emails. They felt as if they already knew her.

“At the time, I was using AOL, and they had those little faces — the emojis of today,” Cheyenne says, smiling. “I’d put all those cool things in there.”

While most of her teammates’ families could pay their daughters’ team dues without any difficulties, the Cordes family didn’t have that luxury.

Tracy shouldered the bulk of the load, along with support from Cheyenne’s grandparents and brother.

“Family sacrifice is the word I would use to describe that time period,” says Cheyenne. “If there’s anything I wanted to do, (my brother) would give his right arm for me to be able to do it.”

When the time came for schools to make their scholarship offers, Cheyenne’s name was on more than one Pac-12 school’s list.

But Cheyenne still had one final hurdle to clear.

It was a Thursday afternoon during Cheyenne’s freshman year at Rodriguez High School. Cheyenne and Tracy made the 40-minute drive from Fairfield to Berkeley. The next day, they were scheduled to fly down to tour UCLA.

Both teams wanted Cheyenne to be their shortstop of the future. Cheyenne couldn’t make up her mind.

UCLA had a tradition unmatched by any other softball program in the country, but Cal was the team she grew up watching. She could still remember the Bears winning their first national championship in 2002.

In the days leading up to her decision, Cheyenne was brought to tears over her dilemma.

“(I wasn’t) crying out of being upset,” Cheyenne says. “But crying because it was such a huge decision, and I didn’t want to mess it up.”

Her tour of Berkeley led Tracy and Cheyenne to an office overlooking Evans Diamond. Cheyenne had kept her feelings bottled up to this point, but she couldn’t hold them in any longer.

Stepping outside into the hall with her mother, Cheyenne told her mother everything she had kept inside since they had arrived in Berkeley. She told her how she just knew that she was meant to be here at Cal.

She couldn’t explain the feeling, just that it just felt right to be here.

Cheyenne committed to be a Bear the moment she stepped back into that office.

“I was just standing there and was like, man, I feel like I’m just supposed to be here.” Cheyenne says. “Whatever my plan is, this is my plan.

“It just feels right. I’ve heard people talk about it, but this must be it.”

Sean Wagner-McGough covers softball. Contact him at swagnermcgough@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.

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After winning the first two games of a three-game series against the No. 19 Arizona Wildcats, the No. 5 Bears were dominated throughout all seven innings in the final game at Hillenbrand Stadium in Tucson, Ariz. The Bears swept the doubleheader on Tuesday, winning 6-2 and 5-1, but fell 7-3 on Wednesday.

The series’ results moves Cal’s overall record to 29-4 overall and 5-1 in Pac-12 play.

“While in the short term losing a game sucks, in the long term, it’s not about how many games you won or lost,” senior catcher Lindsey Ziegenhirt said. “It’s about where you end up at the end of the season.”

On Tuesday, Cal relied heavily on the longball, as it went yard six times over the course of their two victories. Jolene Henderson provided two of those home runs and pitched two complete games. Fellow senior Lindsey Ziegenhirt also accounted for two home runs as she pushed her home run total to 14.

As the team leader in home runs, Ziegenhirt’s bombs didn’t come as a surprise.

“I was just working to hit my pitch, and she threw it there,” Ziegenhirt said. “There wasn’t anything special about those at-bats, just that I put a good bat on the ball.”

The first two games featured vintage performances from Henderson, as she gave up only three runs over the span of both games.

The final game of the series didn’t start off as planned for Henderson as she allowed the first three batters to reach base. Henderson looked visibly frustrated at the calls from the home-plate umpire and continuously fell behind in the counts. Faced with a bases-loaded situation, she surrendered three runs by the time she could shut the door on the first inning.

“I did pretty terrible,” Henderson said. “I definitely didn’t give our team good odds to win the game.”

The Bears squandered their own bases-loaded opportunity in the top of the second inning when Khala Taylor went down swinging and Cheyenne Cordes flew out to shallow right field to end the inning.

The Bears missed out on plenty of opportunities to get back into the game while Henderson uncharacteristically gave up six runs in six innings. Henderson’s performance was her worst since the third game of the season back on Feb. 9 against No. 3 Florida, when Henderson was charged with seven runs in a losing effort.

“We’re getting people on base and we got hits, but we’re just not getting those timely hits,” Ziegenhirt said. “Leaving people on base is never a good statistic to have, but it’s one that we can fix with a little bit of luck and little bit of better timing.”

The going won’t get any easier for Cal. The Bears return home to take on No. 10 Oregon on Saturday. While fatigue is undoubtedly a factor, Ziegenhirt refused to blame the loss to Arizona or any future losses on the Bears’ busy schedule.

“I can’t say that I wasn’t tired, but I can’t say that our energy should have been low just because we played two games the day before,” Ziegenhirt said. “I mean, this is what we train for all season. Fatigue really shouldn’t be an issue at this point.”

Sean Wagner-McGough covers softball. Contact him at swagnermcgough@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.

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The Bears found themselves tied in the top of the last inning against both San Diego State and Fresno State at the Bayer Cropscience Classic in Fresno, Calif., but clutch hits made by Khala Taylor and Jolene Henderson sealed the games in two close 1-0 victories.

Going undefeated for the fourth weekend in a row, the Bears have now won 19 straight games, pushing their record to 20-2.

“We play these tournaments to get ready for the Pac-12 tournament, and this team so far has passed every test that has come their way since the first weekend,” said Cal coach Diane Ninemire.

On Friday, Cal proved its dominance over Iowa State in a 11-0 mercy rule shutout by playing one of the best games the team has played all season.

Sophomore Cheyenne Cordes led the team with a grand slam and captain Lindsey Ziegenhirt added five RBIs.

From the mound, senior Jolene Henderson pitched a near-perfect game. Henderson only allowed one hit all game and allowed only two walks.

Following their offensive explosion, the Bears only narrowly edged out San Diego State, 1-0, and Fresno State, 1-0, in nailbiters during their doubleheader on Saturday.

Against the Aztecs, Cal didn’t register a hit until the third inning when Danielle Henderson nailed a single followed by another single by her sister Jolene at the next at-bat. But the Bears could not capitalize the two Bears in the corners into runs. The Bears and the Aztecs entered the seventh inning tied at 0-0.

With two outs, the Bears had Jasmine Mejia on first with Jolene Henderson on third as freshman Khala Taylor came up to the plate. Taylor hit a RBI single to give Cal its only run of the day, which it protected until the end of the game.

The Bears found themselves in the same situation less than eight hours later against the host Fresno State. This time it was the Bears’ star pitcher who would bail them out.

Jolene Henderson drilled an opportune homer late in the seventh inning and could not have come at a better time.

Henderson stepped up as the lead-off batter and slugged one over the fence, giving Cal the run needed to win. The other six innings consisted of a pitching battle between Henderson and Fresno State freshman Jill Compton who combined for 21 strikeouts — 10 from Compton and 11 from Henderson.

With a commanding 9-3 win over St. Mary’s on Sunday, Cal swept yet another tournament. For the Bears, the San Diego State and Fresno State games stood out as the true tests of pressure.

“Putting our team in that situation (against San Diego State and Fresno State) shows how the team will do under pressure,” said Cordes. “We’re able to have pressure put on us and during Pac-12, we won’t be blowing out teams, so it’s a good experience to have as a team.”

Johnny Zhang covers softball. Contact him at jzhang@dailycal.org Follow him on Twitter @thejohnnyzhang.

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About a year ago, the Bears were enjoying a stellar season that seemed to be heading to a College World Series championship. Instead, the Bears fell at the hands of the eventual national champions, Alabama.

Cal is determined to avoid last year’s fate.

“It’s so important to keep the momentum going but to continue improving,” said Cheyenne Cordes. “You don’t want to peak right now in preseason — you want to peak at the end. So as long as we continue getting better, we’ll be fine.”

Fresh off a blowout win over Pacific on Wednesday, the Bears will head to Fresno to take part in the Fresno State Classic from Friday through Sunday. Cal is set to play four unranked opponents: Iowa State, San Diego State, Fresno State and Saint Mary’s.

Jolene Henderson, the Bears’ staff ace, will be busy trying to shut down the Iowa State offense (9-6). Senior Erica Miller is currently hitting .512 and slugging .791 to lead the Cyclones’ attack.

Against San Diego State (10-9), Cal will be challenged at the plate. Two of the Aztecs starting pitchers, Danielle O’Toole and Rebecca Arbino, boast ERAs below 2.00. In addition, San Diego State catcher Kristin May was recently named the Mountain West Player of the Week. May is on a hot streak, going 7-for-12 with six RBIs last weekend. She also threw out all three baserunners who attempted to steal a base.

Cal’s third game will be against the home squad, Fresno State. While the Bears’ record of 16-2 is light-years better than that of the 13-10 Bulldogs, Fresno State has only lost one game at home this entire season.

The Bears will wrap up their weekend against Saint Mary’s (4-11). It’s tough to see coach Diane Ninemire’s squad falling short in this one. Saint Mary’s is currently seven games below .500, and its team only has one hitter batting over .300.

Cal will be heavily favored to extend its winning streak to 19 by the end of the weekend, but Ninemire is also looking for her squad to improve both offensively and defensively.

After a few mental and physical errors against Pacific, Ninemire tailored practice around fixing those mistakes. As far as offense goes, Ninemire wasn’t pleased with how Cal handled all of its at-bats against the Tigers on Wednesday.

“Offensively, there were some counts when we were swinging at some pitches that were not ideal, swinging at change-ups when we’re ahead in the count,” Ninemire said. “We just need more discipline at the plate.”

While there is still room for the Bears to grow, Ninemire is pleased with how the team has started to shape its identity. And while last season remains fresh in their memories, the Bears have taken the necessary step of not comparing themselves to last year’s group.

“I think our team is finding our own identity,” Ninemire said. “They aren’t comparing themselves to teams in the past. They’re starting to formulate what they’re about and what they want to be.”

Sean Wagner-McGough covers softball. Contact him at swagnermcgough@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.

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In the first home game of the season against the Pacific Tigers, Cheyenne Cordes sent the first pitch in the bottom of the first inning sailing over the left-field fence. The Bears (16-2) would go on to win 7-2 behind four home runs, two coming from the bat of Cordes.

“Generally speaking, I’m an aggressive hitter,” Cordes said. “Going into that at-bat, I was like, ‘If you see it, take it.’”

Ace pitcher Jolene Henderson picked up the win, improving her record to 12-2 on the season. Henderson pitched all seven innings, striking out seven along the way. The All-American gave up nine hits but consistently worked her way out of trouble whenever the Tigers threatened with baserunners.

After Cordes gave the Bears a 1-0 lead in the first inning, the Tigers responded in the third. With a runner on first base, Pacific laid down a sacrifice bunt. The ball was fielded cleanly by Henderson, but instead of taking the easy out at first, she threw late to second base.

“I’m not happy about having errors,” Cal coach Diane Ninemire said. “We need to clean up on our defensive mistakes and our decision-making.”

That mental lapse proved to be costly, as the Tigers scored later in the inning on a controversial RBI single by Megan Hom. With a runner on third base, Hom drilled a line drive to the left side of the infield. In a bang-bang sequence, the Bears thought that they had caught the ball for an out, but the umpire ruled that the ball had hit the ground first.

“You have those calls sometimes,” Henderson said. “They either go your way or they don’t go your way. We just made sure that when we got back on the offensive, no one could control the game but us.”

The Bears still only accounted for one hit entering the fourth, but Lindsey Ziegenhirt gave Cal the lead back with her 10th home run on the season. Ziegenhirt set her career high of home runs back in her freshman season with 15. Now, as a senior, she should eclipse that mark with relative ease.

However, with the exception of those two long-balls, Cal’s offense was stymied until the fifth inning.

Following a Pacific error that allowed Khala Taylor to reach first base, Cordes hit a home run again, giving the Bears some much-needed insurance runs. Danielle Henderson would tack on a two-run homer of her own later in the inning to provide the final runs.

“I have a plan to be patiently aggressive and to swing at strikes,” Cordes said. “It doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes you swing at the one over your head, but that’s just my plan, personally.”

Despite being outhit 9-8 by a lesser foe, the Bears demonstrated the importance of having more pop in their bats.

“That’s what makes our team dangerous,” Ninemire said. “Because we have a number of players that can hit home runs, we’re only ever one swing away from winning a game. And that’s a great feeling to have.”

Sean Wagner-McGough covers softball. Contact him at swagnermcgough@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @seanjwagner.

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Last weekend, the No. 8 Bears extended their win streak to 10 games by going 4-0 in the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic in Palm Springs, Calif. Cal (11-2) managed to shut out three of the four games against Georgia Tech, Illinois and Nebraska.

“The key to success this weekend was teamwork,” said sophomore Cheyenne Cordes. “We worked so well as a team, and it was more about us caring more for the person next to us than ourselves.”

Starting the weekend with confidence, Cal stomped Georgia Tech, 8-0, defeating them in just six innings. The Bears performed spectacularly on the offensive side, bringing in eight runs off nine hits and six doubles. The Yellow Jackets helped out by awarding Cal nine walks.

Cal’s seniors put on another spectacular showing. Jolene Henderson pitched a near no-hitter while adding two total hits of her own, and catcher Lindsey Ziegenhirt hit two doubles.

The seniors’ dominance carried over into the Saturday doubleheader against Maryland and Illinois. Henderson continued to be the team’s anchor by not allowing a single run against Illinois and finished the day as the team’s leading hitter, batting .667 with a home run and three RBI.

In Maryland’s 3-2 win, the Bears started off the game with a strong 3-0 lead in the first inning, the only Cal runs of the game.

The Terrapins fought back, scoring two runs in the fifth inning to put them back in the game to an one-run tilt. Henderson came in to relieve freshman Nisa Ontiveros afterward and pitched a perfect game.

“Jolene always pitches her heart out for us, and Nisa had an amazing showing against Maryland,” said shortstop Cheyenne Cordes.

It was a solid effort for the Bears, but the game could have had a higher score had Cal taken advantage of its 12 runners left on base.

The Bears looked a lot sharper offensively during their next game against Illinois, which they won 5-0. Cal’s offensive unit totaled five runs off eight hits and no strikeouts, earning four of the runs in the top of the fourth inning. Henderson’s pitching didn’t allow Illinois to score a single run in seven innings.

Going into the last game of the weekend against Nebraska on Sunday, the Bears were all business.

For the first two innings, the two teams were locked in a defensive struggle until freshman Vanessa Alvarez broke the tie with a double during the bottom of the third to score the only run of the day. The Bears won the game, 1-0.

The real battle was between Nebraska freshman ace Emily Lockman and Henderson. Lockman, who pitched her first no-hitter last weekend against Utah State, rendered Cal nearly hitless for nearly half the game.

It was Henderson who won the pitching battle, as she struck out five batters for her fifth shutout of the season.

Johnny Zhang covers softball. Contact him at jzhang@dailycal.org Follow him on Twitter @thejohnnyzhang.

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On Sunday afternoon at Levine-Fricke Field, the Bears completed part one of their ambitious goal, defeating Washington 2-0 to win the Super Regional and advance to Oklahoma City.

“This is the biggest win at Cal in (our program’s) history,” coach Diane Ninemire said. “It was a total team effort.”

Henderson was once again brilliant, picking up the slack for a Cal team that struggled to produce on the offensive end. The junior allowed just three hits to a balanced Washington offense, mixing her fastball and change-up effectively to render the Husky batters impotent. Henderson also struck out nine, leaving the Huskies (39-19) looking desperate as they tried — and ultimately failed —to keep up.

Freshman shortstop Cheyenne Cordes led the offense for the Bears (56-4), providing the only RBI’s of the game on a monster home run in the fifth inning. Cordes also exhibited stellar defense, ranging for ground balls in the hole and limiting the amount of Washington hits.

Although ultimately emerging victorious, the Bears’ circumspect start left Cal diehards squirming in their undersized seats. After Cal’s offense went down easily in the top of the first, Henderson ran into a jam. With one out and the bases loaded, Kimi Pohlman scorched a liner towards third, but right at third baseman Danielle Henderson. With two outs, Kylee Lahners hit a sinking line drive to left that appeared to be dropping for extra bases, but speedy left fielder Jamia Reid made a catch to preserve the scoreless inning.

“I told myself, ‘If anything comes out here, I’m going to catch it,’” Reid said. “It was not going to drop.”

Following the initial frame, the game settled into a pitchers’ duel. Husky hurler Bryana Walker looked relatively comfortable with her team’s fate resting on her right arm. Usually Washington’s second starter, Walker was forced into action after ace Kaitlin Inglesby threw 124 pitches on Friday. Walker did not allow a hit until the fifth inning, flummoxing the Bears with a well-located fastball and a good mixture of off-speed hurls.

Henderson, to her own credit, only allowed one hit through the first four frames. After the initial hiccup in the first, the junior All-American settled into a groove, striking out Husky after Husky with her trademark change-up.

The Bears finally broke it open in the top of the fifth. With two outs and Elia Reid pinch-running after a Breana Kostreba single, Cordes smacked a fastball that soared over the scoreboard in left-center field, putting Cal up 2-0.

Henderson would not relinquish the lead. She showed no signs of fatigue in shutting down the Huskies in the later innings, despite a 131-pitch outing just 17 hours before.

As the final hitter fell at the hands of Henderson, Cal briefly huddled together. But the cheering was limited.

“There’s definitely still more to be done,” Jamia Reid said. “Not too much celebration. We’re going to hold off until the final game.”

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Now we’ll need to add a couple more lines to that resume.

The Cal softball team has been the runaway best team in the country as they entered Friday’s NCAA Regionals at Levine-Fricke Field. Wednesday’s revealing of the All-Pac-12 teams gave them the awards to prove it.

Leading the award charge for the Bears were Valerie Arioto and Jolene Henderson. Arioto claimed Player of the Year accolades, while Henderson secured Pitcher of the Year. Coach Diane Ninemire got a little respect herself, earning the Pac-12 Coach of the Year award.

In addition to sweeping the Most Valuable awards, Cal added three members to the All-Pac 12 first team: Jamia Reid, Arioto and Henderson.

Four more Bears were recognized as Honorable Mention: Frani Echavarria, Danielle Henderson, Breana Kostreba, and Jace Williams.

Henderson and Kostreba joined shortstop Cheyenne Cordes as members of the All-Pac-12 freshman team.

The way things are going, this shower of awards may only be the beginning.

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