SEGUIN, Texas – The Tiger softball team advanced to the conference championship final after splitting Saturday's games at the 2024 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Tournament.
Trinity was beaten 4-0 by top seed and 12th-ranked Texas Lutheran University earlier in the day, then came back in the final game of the night with a 4-3 walk-off victory over Southwestern University. The Tigers will face off with the Bulldogs once again, needing to win two games on Sunday to win the SCAC Championship.
The Tigers were held to just three hits in the shutout defeat against TLU, and the tournament hosts opened the game with a run in the bottom of the first to take the early lead. The Bulldogs scored two more times in the third, then added a final insurance run in the sixth.
Saturday's final game went down the wire, as Southwestern tied things up with a run in the seventh to force the Tigers to try and win it in the bottom of the inning. Win it they did, as
Marina Delaluna (Concord, Calif. / Concord) slashed a two-out single to left field with the bases loaded to send Trinity to the championship game.
The two teams began the game by trading runs in the first inning.
Jordyn Williams (Clayton, Calif. / Clayton Valley Charter) drove in the game-tying run for the Tigers in the bottom half, then pitcher
Josephine Koelewyn (Reno, Nev. / Academy of Arts Careers and Technology) helped her own cause with an RBI single in the third that put Trinity ahead 2-1. Southwestern tied things up with a run in the fifth after taking advantage of a Tiger error, but
Hannah Boudreaux (Pearland, Texas / Shadow Creek) put the Tigers right back in front with an RBI single of her own in the bottom of the frame.
Southwestern put together a three-hit inning to tie things up again in the top of the seventh, setting up the final-inning heroics for the Tigers. Boudreaux nearly ended it with one out in the inning, but instead of flying over the wall in right, her hit smashed off the wall to put runners at second and third. After a walk loaded the bases, the Pirates got the second out of the inning to set up Delaluna for the game-winner.
Boudreaux went 3-for-4 with one run and one RBI, while
Samantha Tagawa (Agoura Hills, Calif. / Agoura Hills) had two hits and scored two runs. The seventh-inning double by Boudreaux was her 16th of the year, which is a new Trinity record for a single season. Former Tiger Brianna Pena held the previous record with 15 doubles in 2019.
Heather Nugent (Huntingdon Beach, Calif. / Marina) pitched the final two innings for the Tigers, picking up the win to improve to 2-1 this season. Koelewyn covered the first five innings from the circle, allowing just two runs on four hits. Both pitchers finished with two strikeouts each.
Up Next
Trinity will take on Texas Lutheran in the SCAC Championship game on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. The Tigers will have to win twice to secure the title, as Texas Lutheran is undefeated so far in the tournament.
