ELLENSBURG, Wash. – For the second-straight year and third time in the last four full seasons, Northwest Nazarene softball is headed to the NCAA Tournament.
The top-seeded Nighthawks (34-19) defeated two-seed Saint Martin's (31-20) twice on Saturday to claim the GNAC Tournament title for the second time, with the other coming in 2018, and earn the automatic bid to the NCAA West Regional.
After falling to Central Washington in the opener on Thursday, the Nighthawks needed four-straight wins to win the tournament title. NNU did just that, knocking off Western Washington 4-0 and Central Washington 2-1 on Friday before taking two from Saint Martin's this afternoon by scores of 9-1 and 3-1.
NNU's pitching was dominant in the tourney, allowing just three earned runs in the five games.
Sidney Booth started games one, two, and four for the Nighthawks and went the distance in all three.
Tori Hensley threw a complete game in game three, and then the duo combined to hold the Saints to just the one run in the deciding game five.
Booth was named the Tournament MVP, after making appearances in four of NNU's five games and throwing 22 1/3 innings while allowing just two earned runs on 12 hits while striking out 14.
In the final game, NNU got on the board immediately in the bottom of the first with three runs.
Maia McNicoll started the scoring with an RBI single, followed by an RBI groundout from
Tori Hensley and another RBI single from
Abigail Gagnon.
That turned out to be all that the Nighthawks would need, as Hensley cruised through the first four innings with only two runners reaching base. She ran into a bit of trouble in the fifth with two on and two out, bringing in Booth in relief, who immediately induced a flyout to end the inning.
The Saints would get one run in the sixth on a solo homer, but Booth would then work around a leadoff single in the seventh to close the door on SMU and give the Nighthawks the championship.
Next Up
The Nighthawks will now wait to find out their seeding for the NCAA West Regional, which will be announced Monday morning at 8:00 a.m. Mountain time. The regional will take place next week from May 12 to 14, with the site yet to be determined based on final regional rankings.
