LAKE CHARLES – The McNeese Cowgirls will be playing for all the marbles on Friday afternoon.
 
The Cowgirls (41-12) completed their run through the preliminary rounds unscathed in the 2016 Southland Conference Softball Tournament now are just one win away from making their first NCAA Tournament since the 2010 season.
 
McNeese, the top seed and reigning conference regular season champion, jumped out to a 4-0 first inning lead over No. 3-seed Lamar and never looked back in an 8-4 win to advance to Friday's 3 p.m. championship game.
 
The time for the title game has been pushed back an hour from its originally scheduled time of 2 o'clock due to the late ending to Thursday night's final game between Stephen F. Austin and Nicholls in an elimination game. The Cowgirls will have to wait until the conclusion of Friday's 11:30 a.m. game to see what team they will face.
 
"This is what we've been working for," said head coach Joanna Hardin whose squad set a new single-season school record with its 41^st win. "We've had to compete and fight. We knew the road here wouldn't be easy.
 
"We're not done. We're not celebrating. We'll enjoy this for a couple hours but then get back to work and get ready for tomorrow."
 
Right fielder Tori Yanitor's two-run home run in the first inning helped the Cowgirls build an early 4-0 lead that allowed starting pitcher Jamie Allred to take the edge off a bit.
 
"That was really big," said Hardin. "Anytime you can give your pitcher a lead like that early on it definitely gives them some breathing room."
 
Allred became McNeese's all-time winningest pitcher after getting the victory against Lamar to bump her season record to 17-3 while she notched her record 68^th career win.
 
Lamar (34-21) would attempt to make things interesting in the middle innings when it scored two runs in the third and another in the fourth on a Stephanie Meeuwsen RBI double to cut the Cowgirls' lead to 4-3 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.
 
The Cowgirls followed with a game-clinching half inning with three runs behind back-to-back doubles by Erika Piancastelli and Morgan Catron to put McNeese up 7-3. Piancastelli's pop down the leftfield line scored Marisa Taunton and Taylor Goree and Catron followed with an identical shot of Piancastelli's to score the league's player of the year.
 
McNeese added another run in the fifth inning to make it 8-3 when Goree left off the inning with a single to right centerfield then eventually scored on a throwing error by Lamar's Meeuwsen.
 
Brynn Baca, who led Lamar with two hits, got a two-out RBI double in the top of the sixth to cut the McNeese gap to 8-4. McNeese followed with a pitching change as Jolie Trahan entered to relieve Allred. Trahan breezed through the final five batters she faced allowing no hits and only one batter to reach base.
 
Allred threw 5 2/3 innings and gave up four runs, three earned, on seven hits. She struckout three and walked three.
 
Offensively, McNeese finished with nine hits in the game with Vincent and Goree each getting two.
 
Lamar starting pitcher Ciara Luna (16-8) took the loss after giving up all four runs in the first inning and getting just two outs in the frame before being pulled for reliever Lauren Dannelley.
 
The Cowgirls will be playing in their seventh conference tournament championship in school history and second in the last three years. McNeese will also be playing in its third title game since 2010, tied with Northwestern State for the most appearances in that timeframe among all current league teams.