D 3 softball

[Riley Zayas]

ETBU's Avery Holland with a no-hitter against Williams in Game 1 of the Marshall Super Regional. 8-0 win in 5 innings for ETBU, who is 42-2 this season. Holland allowed just one base runner via a hit-by-pitch and is 13-0 on the year. Really impressive.

[Riley Zayas]

Scores through Day 1 of Super Regional action:

Belhaven, 10, Berry, 1
Case Western Reserve, 8, Coe, 5
Tufts, 3, Salisbury, 0
Trine, 9, UW-Oshkosh, 0
Virginia Wesleyan, 6, Muskingum, 1
ETBU, 8, Williams, 0
Christopher Newport, 6, Rowan, 0

Central vs Linfield, 7:00 pm ET first pitch

[phil]

Are you rooting for Lake Belton against Lake Creek tonight, Riley?

[WLCALUM83]

Final:  Central-IA 4, Linfield 2 (11 innings):

A Rylee Duncan 2-run single plated the winning runs in the opening game of this Super Regional. Morgan Schaben got the win. Tayah Kelley the loss (only her 2nd all season).

[Riley Zayas]

Yes, pretty incredible game in McMinnville. I thought Central's Morgan Schaben was the player of the game, with how she pitched in the late innings. 4.2 IP, 1 H, 2 BB, in 16 batters faced with the game tied at 2-2 for most of her outing. And that Linfield lineup has plenty of firepower! Game 2 will be interesting today.

Are you rooting for Lake Belton against Lake Creek tonight, Riley?

Certainly pulling for Lake Belton tonight! Still have to wrap up Game 1, then Game 2 will immediately follow. Lake Belton currently winning, 5-0, in Game 1 (before weather postponed the remainder of that one to today), so they're in a good spot. Such a fun team to watch. D3 connection there too, as starting CF Victoria Shimabukuro will play at UMHB next year.

[phil]

Trine, CNU, Salisbury...all exiting the tourney while Linfield and Berry are each playing their game 3s. A couple more upsets and it will be interesting to see how the eight World Series teams (besides ETBU) will wind up being seeded by the NCAA.

[Riley Zayas]

Absolutely...certainly some surprises in these Super Regionals!

We have 6 teams that have already punched their ticket to Marshall: ETBU, CWRU, Virginia Wesleyan, Rowan, UW-Oshkosh, Tufts.

[TUAngola]

The story of the day at Trine was UW-Oshkosh freshman pitcher Brianna Bougie throwing back to back complete games against the Thunder.  Out of the Titans staff she was only 3rd in innings pitched this season but after the Trine bats had a lot of success against their ace Sydney Nemetz on Thursday, Bougie was masterful today.  She wasn't overpowering but had very good command with her location and with her wicked changeup kept the Trine hitters off balance all day.  Congratulations to the Titans, they move on to Texas with a 44-5 record and Trine finishes their run at 43-5. 

The Thunder had a great season as well.  Even with winning the Natty last season and having a great season this year they are still relatively young.  Their four best hitters were 3 sophomores and a freshman.  They may only lose one player to eligibility, just depends on whether Michon and Elliott come back for a 5th season next year.  They will need to develop and/or add some more pitching depth.  That is what helped them win it all last year is they were 3 strong pitchers deep and were relatively 'fresh' in the postseason.  This year it was mainly Michon and Hill.   

[WLCALUM83]

The other 2 entrants are:

Linfield (must have got a real pep talk or something, 8-run ruling Central-IA in both games after losing the opener.)

Belhaven (mild upset here.)

Gotta feel for Coe (Kohawks had 7 5th year players on the roster, didn't get back were they were last season.)

[TUAngola]

The seeding has been revealed for the NCAA D3 Finals:

Bracket 1:

#1 Linfield vs #8 Tufts
#4 UW-Oshkosh vs #5 Virginia Wesleyan

Bracket 2:

#2 ETBU vs #7 Rowan
#3 CWRU vs #6 Belhaven

[WLCALUM83]

It's a Belhaven/ETBU best of 3 for the D3 Softball title.

Game 1 is tomorrow

Game 2 and if necessary, game 3 is Wednesday.

[GameBall14]

Belhaven took Game 1 ... Game 2 at 2PM today

[justafan12]

ETBU wins game 2.

No pitching depth or everyone is tried in game 3.  7-5 ETBU bottom of 3.

[WLCALUM83]

ETBU also takes Game 3!

Wild one early, Tigers' Cummings homered twice- ETBU's pitching depth and power offense was the difference here, as well as their being at home-

[phil]

Belhaven attempted to pitch Carruth every inning of every game. In the end, she pitched all but three innings in the Texas heat - eight games in six days - 52 innings - 740 pitches. She was arguably the best DIII pitcher I saw all year, but by Wednesday she was running on fumes. You've got to have a couple pitchers you can count on to finish a game and take an inning or two away from the starter - especially when they were up by three+ runs late against Case, Tufts, and Linfield.