The Pacific Coast Athletic Conference regular season came to a close last week with Palomar College winning a seventh straight PCAC title. The Comets will be the No. 3 seed in Southern California for the upcoming playoffs.
Palomar finished the regular season 33-5 overall and 15-1 in PCAC play. The Comets won their final 15 games of the season, eight of which were in conference play. The other seven wins came against high-profile programs such as Mt. San Antonio College, Cypress College, Riverside City College and College of the Canyons, all of which made the playoffs.
Palomar was 20-1 at home this season and will open a three-game series at home against Citrus College (21-19), who finished tied for third in the Western State East Division. The Comets enter the playoffs with the No. 2 hitting team and No. 6 pitching staff in the state. Palomar batted .396 as a team and has a state-best 405 hits for the year. The Comets have seven players hitting .400-or-better, led by Sarah Fisher (.488). Palomar's pitching staff has a combined 1.69 ERA for the year, led by Catalina Aguilar (15-2, 1.87 ERA) and Allie Hughen (11-1, 0.55 ERA).
Two other programs from the PCAC qualified for the playoffs with San Diego Mesa College earning the No. 13 seed and Southwestern College garnering the No. 15 seed. San Diego Mesa and Southwestern tied for second place in the Pacific Coast Conference with 13-3 records in conference play.
Mesa (28-10) will open a three-game series at El Camino College (34-6) this Friday. The Olympians closed the season with eighth straight wins, four of which were shutouts. Mesa has the No. 7 team batting average in the state this season (.362), led by Kaleigh Lane (.478). El Camino College was the champions of the South Coast South Division.
Southwestern (25-14) will play a play-in game on Tuesday at home against Ventura College (22-16). The Jaguars closed the season with four straight wins and were responsible for Palomar's only loss in conference play earlier in the season. Southwestern has the No. 17 pitching staff in the state, with a 2.59 team ERA. The Jaguars are led in the circle by Gertrude "Trudie" Nixon (24-10, 1.82 ERA), who had the programs' first-ever no-hitter earlier in the season. Ventura finished in second place in the Western State North Division.