LONG BEACH, Calif.—Notre Dame all-region pitcher Caitlyn Brooks went the distance against South Dakota Saturday, allowing one run on five hits and striking out two in leading the 22^nd-ranked Fighting Irish to a 2-1 win against the Coyotes on the campus of Long Beach State University.
 
Notre Dame (2-1), an NCAA Tournament team that won 43 games last season, mustered just one earned run off Coyote pitchers Ally Wiegand and Megan Green, but did just enough to win. The Irish scored on an RBI double by Ali Western in the third inning, and made it 2-0 on an RBI single Morgan Reed in the fifth. Reed was 3-for-3 in the contest. She scored Western in the fifth after Western reached on a throwing error.
 
South Dakota (1-4) cut the lead in half with a single by Shelby Keil followed by an RBI double by Emily Winckler in the sixth. Winckler was thrown out at third trying to make it a triple to end the inning. Jessica Rogers singled with one out in the seventh, but Brooks induced back-to-back ground balls to end the game.
 
Wiegand, a freshman from Downs, Ill., earned her fourth start in five games for South Dakota. She pitched into the fifth inning before handing off to Green, who induced a double play to get out of the inning. Green retired four of the five batters she faced.
 
Three of Wiegand's four starts in her opening weekend were against NCAA Tournament teams and the other was against a 30-win San Diego State squad. In 21 innings of work in California, Wiegand struck out 11, walked two, posted an ERA of 3.33, and pitched her first collegiate shutout.
 
Offensively, Keil led the Coyotes with four hits spanning the five games. No other USD player had more than two hits. South Dakota hit just .171 on the trip and scored three runs.
 
The Coyotes next travel to Tempe, Ariz., for five games at Arizona State's Littlewood Classic Feb. 17-19. USD head coach Robert Wagner, who spent eight years at Arizona State, will face his former team Feb. 19 on the final game of the trip.