CSUN Expecting Berth in Playoffs After Split : College baseball: Matadors confident they will be invited to the NCAA regionals after ending regular season with the best record in school history.

SACRAMENTO —  The Cal State Northridge baseball team split a doubleheader with Cal State Sacramento on Saturday and ended its first regular season at the NCAA Division I level with the best record (41-16-1) in school history.

Now the Matadors will wait and see if that is good enough for the NCAA tournament selection committee, which will announce this year’s 48-team, eight-region field Monday night.

Northridge, last season’s Division II runner-up, defeated Sacramento in the first game at Hornet Field, 13-7, before losing the second game, 3-1, concluding the regular season with a .716 winning percentage.

“I’ve felt all along that we’ve played well enough this season to deserve a berth in the tournament,” Northridge Coach Bill Kernen said. “I really felt like we could have been swept up here and still been selected, but nothing is guaranteed.”

Craig Clayton, who improved to 13-4 with a complete-game victory in the opener, was more succinct. “If we don’t make the playoffs, there’s something wrong,” said Clayton, who gave up 10 hits and struck out nine. “If we didn’t make the playoffs, the system would be a joke.”

The Matadors, the 12th-ranked team in Baseball America’s poll, collected 16 hits against four pitchers in the opener Saturday. They were held to five hits by Mike Teich (8-2), formerly of El Camino Real High and College of the Canyons, in the second game. Clayton, who pitched the first inning of Friday’s game that was called because of rain after 1 1/2 innings, entered the ninth with a 13-2 lead over the Hornets (41-23-1) but gave up three hits--including a grand slam to Casey Simpson--and five runs in the final inning.

“My arm just went dead on me at the end,” said Clayton, whose nine strikeouts raised his school-record total to 150 for the season. “I didn’t pitch that much yesterday, but just warming up for that game and throwing the one inning started to affect me in about the sixth inning today.”

Luckily for Clayton, Northridge had scored seven runs in the seventh and three in the eighth to extend its 3-2 lead. Kyle Washington singled and scored on Scott Richardson’s sacrifice fly to start the Matadors’ seventh-inning onslaught, and Mike Solar (a combined one for eight in both games) capped it with a three-run home run that gave Northridge a 10-2 lead.

Scott Sharts (10-6) pitched well in the second game, giving up four hits and walking none in eight innings, but took the loss as Northridge left 10 runners on base, including five in scoring position.

Northridge scored its only run in the eighth on Denny Vigo’s run-scoring single.