GREELEY, Colo. – The Jackrabbit softball program saw its historic season come to an end Friday in the National Invitational Softball Championship regional final, dropping a 7-1 winner-take-all contest to Loyola Marymount after forcing an if-necessary game with a 6-5 victory in the first game of the day against the Lions.
South Dakota State finishes the season at 37-18, posting its best record at the Division I level while earning the program’s second-ever postseason appearance. The Jackrabbits had four NFCA All-Region selections, six All-Summit League awardees (including the player and coach of the year) and four All-NISC Greeley Regional team members: Abbey Murphy, Julia An- dersen, Ali Herdliska and Megan Rushing.
Game 1
• SDSU 6, Loyola Marymount 5
Taylor Compton started and pitched 2 2/3 frames, exiting in the third after allowing five runs on six hits with a walk.
Madison Hope (23-9) entered in relief and threw 4 1/3 scoreless innings, surrendering just three hits with one strikeout. She set the school record for wins in a season in the process.
Brittney Morse, Lyndsey Crist and Dana Chavez (RBI) all had two hits, while Andersen (RBI) and Rushing (three RBIs) blasted home runs. Paige Gerdes drove in the other Jackrabbit run with a walk.
SDSU jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first.
Andersen started the offense with a solo shot from the two- hole in the lineup, followed by a Herdliska single up the middle. With two gone in the inning, Crist lined a sharp single off the LMU third baseman’s glove down the line, and Chavez drove Herdliska home from second as she poked a single to left. In the next at-bat, Rushing blasted a 3-2 pitch over the center-field wall for a three-run homer.
LMU got two back in the second with back-to-back doubles and a one-out squeeze bunt to make it a 5-2 game before SDSU responded with a run in the third as Gerdes drew a full-count, bases-loaded walk for an RBI as a pinch-hitter.
Ahead 6-2 at that point, the Jackrabbits saw their advantage cut to one – 6-5 – after the Lions’ Delanie Wisz (two-run) and Andrea Gonzalez (solo) hit home runs in the bottom of third despite a highlight play at the plate after an LMU double saw Andersen, Yanney Ponce and Morse connect on a throw from the left-center fence.
That score held the rest of the way, as SDSU nished the win with a wild finish in the bottom of the seventh. A leadoff runner for LMU took second a sacrifice bunt, and as Murphy tracked down a deep fly in right for the second out the Lions’ baserunner was deemed to have left early on a tag-up for the final out.
Game 2
• Loyola Marymount 7, SDSU 1
Alicia Brown went 4-for-4 with five RBIs and Hannah Bandimere gave up one run – unearned – on nine hits with four strikeouts and a walk in six-plus innings in the circle.
Brown hit a solo homer in the second inning and added an RBI single in the fourth to make it 2-0. She added another RBI single in the sixth and closed out the scoring with a two-run shot in the seventh.
Compton (10-8) started and pitched the opening two frames, allowing one run on one hit. Kendra Conard entered to begin the third and threw into the sixth, exiting after the leadoff batter reached when Hope came into pitch.
Conard was tagged for two runs on a pair of hits and a walk before leaving, and Hope allowed four runs on six hits in 1 2/3 innings. Compton re-entered in the seventh and recorded the final out of the inning.
Andersen and Herdliska both went 2-for-4 at the plate while Murphy, Morse, Crist, Rushing and Ponce added a hit each.
The Jackrabbits scored in the bottom of the fourth, capitalizing on a two-out LMU error.
After Crist walked, Chavez reached on a elder’s choice and moved to second as Rushing singled through the left side. Both runners advanced 60 feet on a ground out in the next at-bat, and with two gone in the inning Gerdes’ pinch-hit ground ball was mishandled at first and Chavez raced home.
Notes
The Jackrabbits went 3-2 in elimination games this season between the Summit League Championship and the NISC. ... SDSU scored five or more runs in an inning 21 times this season. ... Hope broke the school record for wins in a season with 23. Melissa Pater held the previous mark with 22 in 1996. ... South Dakota State earned its first postseason berth at the Division I level and won a Division I-era record 37 games.
Photo from www.gojacks.com.
