CHICO – The Chico State softball team got its California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) season off to an encouraging start last weekend, as an energized Wildcats offense scored 18 runs and banged out 27 hits to earn a split of their four-game road series with UC San Diego. Things don’t get any easier for the ’Cats this Friday and Saturday, though, as they travel to Seaside to battle CCAA leader Cal State Monterey Bay in a pair of doubleheaders.

Chico State (4-2 overall, and 2-2 in CCAA play) enters the weekend tied for fourth place in the conference standings with UC San Diego. The ’Cats offense has scored 25 runs in its first six games this season – by comparison, it took 16 games for last year’s Wildcat squad to plate its 25th run. Chico State currently ranks fifth in the CCAA in team batting (.278), hits (45), runs scored and on-base percentage (.380). Freshman pitcher Kacie McCarthy is tied for the conference lead with three victories, and is eighth in the CCAA with a 1.70 earned run average.

Cal State Monterey Bay heads into its home conference opener 5-1 on the season and sitting atop the conference standings with a 4-0 mark, thanks to last weekend’s series sweep of Cal State Stanislaus in Turlock. The Otters – who won 36 games last year, captured the CCAA Conference Tournament championship and earned an NCAA Championship Tournament West Region bid – are batting .310 as a team in 2010, and averaging seven runs a game after torching Cal State Stanislaus for 39 runs in last weekend’s four-game sweep. The Otters are led by junior catcher Shea Olds – an All-CCAA and All-West Region second team selection last year, Olds was named CCAA Player of the Week after belting four home runs and driving in nine runs against the Warriors.

The Wildcats-Otters series begins Friday at CSUMB Softball Field in Seaside, with the twinbill’s first game scheduled for 1:00 p.m. Saturday’s doubleheader will get underway at noon.