WINONA, Minn. – The third-seeded St. Olaf College softball team mounted a seventh-inning rally but fell one run short in a 3-2 loss to the second-seeded College of Saint Benedict on the semifinals of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Softball Playoffs on Saturday afternoon at Saint Mary's Field.

Saint Ben's (26-13) led 3-0 after three innings and 3-1 heading into the seventh before St. Olaf (24-16) put together a rally. After the first batter of the inning was retired, three consecutive Oles reached base before fifth-year senior Shreya Ashok made it a one-run game with a sacrifice fly, but the Bennies got the next batter to advance to the championship game.

With the win, Saint Ben's will face top-seeded Saint Mary's University in the championship game with the conference's automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament on the line. The loss brought an end to the careers of St. Olaf's five seniors, who helped the Oles extend their streak of playoff appearances to seven. The Oles have won at least one game in the tournament in eight of their last nine berths in the MIAC Playoffs.

St. Olaf outhit Saint Ben's by an 8-7 margin, as sophomores Regan Zak and Rylan Nakamura tallied two hits apiece, with Zak also scoring a run. Senior Medora Rylee, junior Roxanne Ring, junior Belle Schmidt, and junior Elle Brandt picked up one hit apiece.

Ring suffered just her fourth loss of the season after giving up three runs on six hits with no walks and three strikeouts over the first 4.0 innings. Junior Madyn Singleton and Orth both worked scoreless innings of relief.

Ellie Peterson held St. Olaf to one run on six hits with no walks and no strikeouts in 5.0 innings for the Bennies before Olivia Wallace earned the save after yielding one run over the final 2.0 innings.

Peterson and Ring kept the opposing offenses scoreless until Saint Ben's broke through with three runs in the bottom of the third. Lily Treml started the scoring with an RBI single before Olivia Tautges delivered a two-out, two-run single later in the frame.

The Oles got one of the runs back in the next half inning, which started with a double by Zak and a single by Rylee. Sophomore Eva Hokanson knocked in Zak with a fielder's choice grounder to get St. Olaf on the board. With two outs, Ring singled to put two runners on for Schmidt, who lined out to shortstop to end the frame.

With the Bennies still holding onto a 3-1 lead, Schmidt got on with a one-out single to start the Oles' seventh-inning rally. Brandt followed by getting on via a fielder's choice on an errant throw to second before Nakamura singled to fill the bases. Ashok flied out to left to score Schmidt to make Brandt the tying run at second, but Wallace got Zak to fly out to left for the final out.

St. Olaf finished the season 24-16 overall for its eighth consecutive season with at least 20 wins and a winning record, excluding the abbreviated 2020 season.