St. Scholastica Softball Heading To NCAA Tournament

May 7

Northland Sports Online

The St. Scholastica softball team came from four runs down on Saturday to defeat Northwestern College 6-4 in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Tournament championship game at Kenwood Field and, in doing so, earns the conference’s automatic qualifier into next week’s NCAA Tournament.

This will be the second time in program history the Saints will be going to the NCAA Tournament as they first did it in 2006.

The Eagles advanced to the championship game by defeating Bethany Lutheran in the first game of the day 7-6 in extra innings off of a walk-off sacrifice fly. They would have to defeat the Saints twice to win the title.

Northwestern took a 2-0 lead after the first inning with a two-out double by Lauren Walker. The Eagles extended the lead to 4-0 in the top of the second after scoring on a CSS error and Jenna Ruby driving in a run with a single.

After that pitcher Jen Falk (Altona, Manitoba/W.C. Miller Collegiate (Rainy River CC)) settled down, allowing just one it over the final five innings. However, the CSS offense needed to pick Falk up. The Saints had just one hit through three innings, but in the fourth inning, Tiffany Hudack (Ashland, Wis. /Ashland HS) drove in Theresa Tauer (Plymouth, Minn. /Wayzata HS) on a RBI double. Falk then helped herself at the plate with a sacrifice fly to right, scoring pinch runner Shauney Moen (Cedar, Minn. /St. Francis HS) to make it 4-2.

After a scoreless fifth inning, the Saints came to bat in the sixth and leadoff hitter Kali Carlson (Duluth, MN/Duluth Central HS) got on with a bunt single. Tauer and Hudack each followed with singles to left to load the bases.

That brought up Falk, who put the Saints in front with a two-run double in the sixth inning against Bethany Lutheran yesterday. Today, Falk would come through again hitting a shot just over the head of the right fielder to clear the bases and give the Saints a 5-4 lead. Jordan Spiering (Mounds View, Minn. /Irondale HS) added insurance with a single up the middle to drive in Falk and make it 6-4.

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