IRVINE, Calif. – Northwest Nazarene softball battled until the final pitch, but dropped a heartbreaker to top-seed and national No. 11 Concordia University Irvine 3-2 on day two of the NCAA DII West Regional.
The Nighthawks will now play the winner of an elimination game between 5-seed Cal State San Bernardino and 8-seed Biola later on Friday at 4:00 p.m. Pacific. The winner of that game will advance to Saturday's regional pod final, having to take down host CUI twice to advance to super regionals, while the loser will see their season come to an end.
After falling behind early in the game, the Nighthawks had a pair of great opportunities to rally down in the sixth and seventh innings. Down 3-1 with one out in the sixth,
Abigail Gagnon reached and advanced to second on a throwing error by the CUI pitcher before
Sidney Booth was intentionally walked and
Madison Felter dropped a single into right field to load the bases.
Emma Bumatay entered to pinch-hit and came through with a single up the middle to score Gagnon from third, but pinch-runner
Dominique Trevino was thrown out at home and Felter doubled up trying to reach third to end the inning with just one run.
Now trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the final inning,
Clarissa Moreno started a two-out rally with a single to right and
Tori Hensley followed with another single to put the tying run on second and the winning run at first. However,
Maia McNicoll went down on strikes to end the contest.
Hensley was outstanding on both sides of the field, allowing just six hits while striking out five in a complete-game effort in the circle while going 3-4 with an RBI at the plate. She drove in the Nighthawks' first run in the third.
Concordia tallied their runs in the first and third frames.
The Nighthawks outhit the Golden Eagles 8-6. With the loss, NNU's win streak was snapped at 11 games.
