LAKE CHARLES – McNeese Cowgirl senior Kaylee Lopez provided perhaps her most electrifying hit of the season when her one-out, one-strike double into the left-center field gap scored Alayis Seneca to give the Cowgirls a 2-1 walk-off win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi to begin a rain delayed second day of the 2023 Southland Conference Softball Tournament.
 
The 3 ½-hour delay didn't seem to faze Cowgirl starting pitcher Whitney Tate as she threw the complete game two-hitter while allowing an unearned run and running her record to 16-4.
 
The top-seeded Cowgirls (42-14) will play No. 2 Southeastern Louisiana in a semifinal matchup at 6:30 on Thursday.
 
A&M-Corpus Christi (24-24), the No. 5 seed in the tournament and already 1-0 in bracket play after defeating Lamar 3-2 on Tuesday, took a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning when Alexandria Torres led-off with a single for the Islanders' second and final hit of the game, then later scored on a throwing error by Cowgirl shortstop Reese Reyna to put the Islanders up 1-0.
 
Reyna got her revenge in the fifth inning when after battling a one-out, two-strike count with six foul balls, she sent the next pitch into the video board in left field for her first home run of the season and tying the game 1-1.
 
Tate continued to cruise through the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, allowing only one batter to reach, that by a walk, and no hits, setting up the Cowgirls' offense to win in dramatic fashion.
 
Seneca got things going with a one-out infield single to shortstop and Reyna drew a walk to put runners on first and second. That set up Lopez, who pinch-hit for Crislyne Moreno, as she drove her two-strike pitch to the wall while Seneca rounded third for the winning score.
 
The Cowgirls finished with five hits in the game, two each by Seneca and Reyna while Lopez collected the other.
 
Islanders' starting pitcher, Primrose Aholelei took the loss and fell to 16-4 on the season after she allowed two runs on five hits, walked six and struck out 11 in 6.1 innings of action.
 
The victory ran the Cowgirls' tournament winning streak to eight consecutive games.