NORTHFIELD, Minn. – The St. Olaf College softball team clinched another berth in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Playoffs by finishing off a 9-8 eight-inning win over St. Catherine University on Wednesday afternoon at Mabel Shirley Field.
Senior
Elle Brandt delivered a walk-off single to give St. Olaf (12-12, 5-3 MIAC) a split with St. Kate's (17-9, 6-2 MIAC) in a game that was the second half of a doubleheader that began on April 15. The game was suspended due to darkness tied at 8-8 after seven innings two weeks ago.
In the resumption, senior
Roxanne Ring retired three consecutive batters to prevent the Wildcats from bringing in their runner that started the inning at second due to the international tiebreaker. In the bottom of the inning, first year
Joy Jung advanced St. Olaf's runner to third with a sacrifice bunt before Brandt hit a single off the glove of a retreating right fielder who was playing in to try and cut down the winning run.
The victory gave the Oles their eighth consecutive berth in the MIAC Playoffs, a streak that began in 2018. St. Olaf remains in third place in the conference standings, one game in the loss column, but three in the win column, ahead of Macalester College, which still has to face the top-two teams.
Over the course of the game that took two weeks to finish, Jung, first year
Hannah Yaeger, and junior
Kyra Narum all picked up two hits apiece for the Oles. Jung was 2-for-2 with a walk, a double, a run scored, and three RBI. Narum was 2-for-4 with a walk and two runs scored, while Yaeger was 2-for-4 with a walk, a double, one run scored, and one RBI. Senior
Abby Nevin also got on base four times, going 1-for-2 with three walks and three runs scored.
Two weeks ago, St. Kate's jumped out to a 2-0 lead with a pair of first-inning runs. St. Olaf tied the game with a two-run bottom of the third, with runs scoring on a double by Yaeger and a sacrifice fly off the bat of Jung.
After the Wildcats reclaimed the lead at 4-2 in the fifth, the Oles scored four runs in the bottom of the inning thanks, in part, to two St. Kate's errors. Three runs in the inning came in on the result of errors by the Wildcats before junior
Rylan Nakamura singled in another run to cap the inning.
St. Kate's tied the game on a pinch-hit, two-run home run by Lexi Drasher in the top of the sixth only for St. Olaf to take the lead back in the next half inning. With runners on first and second and one out, Jung doubled to center to score a pair and give the Oles an 8-6 lead.
The Wildcats got another pinch-hit, two-run home run in the top of the seventh to again tie the game. The Oles filled the bases with two outs in the bottom of the seventh but could not get the winning run in.
On Wednesday, Ring entered the circle and got a foul out to third and a strikeout after St. Kate's bunted its runner to third in the top of the eighth, setting up the walk-off victory for the Oles.
St. Olaf will wrap up the regular season with a doubleheader at Carleton College on Friday, May 1 starting at 3:30 p.m.
