St. Mary-of-the-Woods tops Grenadiers for RSC Softball title
RSC Sports Information
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. - St. Mary-of-the-Woods (Ind.) College built a 6-0 lead after four innings and cruised to a 7-4 win over Indiana University Southeast in the championship game of the 2023 River States Conference Softball Championship, Saturday afternoon, at Little Creek Park.
The Pomeroys, the No. 3 seed from the West Division, upped its record to 36-14 en route to claiming their second consecutive conference tournament title.
The victory also sends head coach Jim Walker's squad to the NAIA National Championship Opening Round as the league's tourney champion.
The top-seeded Grenadiers, who had already punched their ticket to the national tourney as the RSC's regular season champion, slipped to 33-17 with the loss.
Both teams will learn their Opening Round destination on Tuesday. The national tournament is scheduled to begin May 15-17 at 10 sites across the country.
In Saturday's title game, St. Mary-of-the-Woods raced to a 3-0 lead by scoring once in the first inning and twice more in the second.
The Pomeroys then blew things wide open by scoring three times in the fourth inning to extend the lead to 6-0.
IU Southeast made things a bit more respectable late, scoring twice in both the fifth and seventh innings.
Camryn Scott finished 2-for-3 with a double and a run batted in for SMWC, while Jasmine Kinzer delivered a two-run, pinch-hit double.
Lyric Krause also had a double in the winning effort.
Summer Rocha went the distance in the pitcher's circle for the Pomeroys, allowing seven hits. She also walked three and struck out four.
Brooklyn Gibbs started and took the loss for IUS, allowing two hits, four walks and six runs - four earned - over 3-2/3 innings.
Autumn Oehlstrom led the Grenadiers at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a pair of doubles and driving in three runs.
IU Southeast reached the championship matchup by beginning the day with a 6-0 win over the University of Rio Grande in the loser's bracket final.
Madison Wathen allowed just two hits in the complete game shutout and struck out nine. Kayla Sedgwick had both hits for the RedStorm (35-18) with singles in the first and seventh innings, the second of which snapped a streak of 17 consecutive retired batters.
The Grenadiers did all of their offensive damage in the fourth inning against Rio starter Sydney Campolo, parlaying four hits, an error and a hit batter into six runs. The error resulted in five of the six runs being unearned.
Erin Templeman opened the inning with ground-rule double to left center and Macie Zink followed with a bunt single which moved pinch-runner Alaina Winzeler to third.
Katie Templeman then hit a dribbler to the third base side of the circle which Campolo fielded, but her throw to first was in the dirt for an error and Winzeler scored to make it 1-0.
Each of the next two batters were retired routinely, but Issy Wright drew a walk to load the bases and Kendall Brown was hit by a pitch to force home Zink with the second run of the inning.
Oehlstrom followed with a two-run single to left to make it 4-0 and, after a pitching change, Cassi Roman greeted Rio reliever Kali Brickman with a two-run single to left-center to cap the uprising.
Oehlstrom, Roman and Wright all had two hits in the winning effort.