MOORHEAD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College softball team made it 10 Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) wins in a row with 8-0 (five innings) and 11-9 road victories over Concordia-Moorhead on Tuesday at Jake Christiansen Athletic Complex.
St. Olaf (21-14, 14-5 MIAC) matched its longest winning streak since 2022 behind a four-hit shutout from senior
Roxanne Ring in game one and an 18-hit performance in game two to extend its winning steak against Concordia-Moorhead (11-23, 3-17 MIAC) to 19 games. The sweep gave the Oles their ninth 20-win season in as many complete seasons under head coach
Kayla Hatting and moved St. Olaf closer to securing another spot in the MIAC Playoffs.
With the wins, the Oles remained in third place in the conference standings and moved to within one win of securing a playoff spot. St. Olaf is three games in the loss column ahead of Carleton College and Gustavus Adolphus College with three games to play.
The Oles will finish their suspended game against St. Catherine University at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 29 at Mabel Shirley Field. The teams were tied at 8-8 after seven innings in the second game of their doubleheader back on April 15 before darkness halted play.
St. Olaf 8, Concordia-Moorhead 0 (5 inn.) | Box Score
Ring tossed her 13th complete game and third shutout of the season by keeping the Cobbers to four hits with two walks and seven strikeouts. St. Olaf held a 2-0 lead through four innings before breaking the game open with a six-run fifth.
Junior
Jill Arp highlighted the six-run fifth inning with a three-run home run for the first homer of her collegiate career. Ring also homered in the win while eight Oles had at least one hit. First year
Hannah Yaeger was the lone Ole with multiple hits, going 2-for-3 with a walk, two doubles, and one RBI.
Ring homered to left center to start the second for the first run of the game before getting out of a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the bottom of the inning with a strikeout. Yaeger extended St. Olaf's lead to 2-0 with a one-out double in the third that scored junior
Regan Zak, who walked to start the inning before moving to second on a ground out.
The Oles pushed their lead to 8-0 by scoring six runs on just three hits in the fifth thanks to drawing six walks in the frame. Junior
Eva Hokanson doubled in the first run of the inning before Arp homered three batters later to make it 6-0. A wild pitch and a bases-loaded walk to Hokanson later in the inning accounted for the other two runs.
St. Olaf 11, Concordia-Moorhead 9 | Box Score
St. Olaf held a 7-0 lead midway through the third before holding off a pair of rallies by Concordia to complete the sweep. The Cobbers used a four-run third to cut the Oles' lead to 7-4 and scored four times in the seventh while getting the tying run into scoring position before Ring returned to the circle and got a strikeout to end it.
Six Oles registered multi-hit performances in St. Olaf's 18-hit outburst. Hokanson and seniors
Belle Schmidt and
Eva Hokanson had three hits apiece, while Zak, Yaeger, and senior
Madyn Singleton added two apiece. Singleton hit her first home run of the season and went 5.1 innings in the circle to eventually collect the win.
A two-out RBI single by Hokanson in the first got St. Olaf on the board before the Oles scored six runs in the top of the third to extend their lead to 7-0. After the first batter of the inning was retired, seven consecutive Oles reached, six via hit, culminating in a two-run double by junior
Rylan Nakamura.
The Cobbers got within three at 7-4 with a four-run bottom of the third, but St. Olaf answered with a three-run top of the fifth to build a 10-4 cushion. Yaeger plated two runs in the fifth with a single two batters after Zak singled in the first run of the frame.
Singleton's one-out solo home run in the sixth gave the Oles an 11-4 lead, but Concordia got a run in the bottom of the sixth and four more in the bottom of the seventh to close the gap to 11-9. With St. Olaf clinging to a two-run lead and runners on second and third with two outs, Ring got a strikeout to finish off the win.
