LAKE CHARLES— McNeese softball advanced to the Southland Conference Championship Series for the second straight year with a 7-6 win over No. 3 Seed Nicholls (31-23) Sunday.
McNeese, the No. 2 seed will also host the Championship Series for the second straight year and will face No. 5 seed Lamar. The Cardinals upset No. 1 seed Southeastern 2-1 in eight innings in Hammond earlier Sunday.
The Championship Series, the best two out of three games, is slated for May 7-9 with single games played each day. The winner will represent the Southland Conference in the NCAA Tournament.
Game times and ticket information will be available sometime Monday. Stay tuned to McNeese sports social media platforms for updated information.
Kassidy Chance led a McNeese team that picked up 10 hits in the game with a 4 for 4 plate appearance with three doubles, one single, three RBI and scored three runs.
Freshman
Brookelyn Taylor improved to 13-7 overall with the win and
Maddie Taylor picked up her third save of the season. Brookelyn allowed three runs on five hits with two strikeouts in 5.0 innings.
McNeese (38-19) repeated what it did against the Colonels on Saturday by jumping out to the early lead. Chance led the bottom half of the first off with a double to right field then advanced to third on a sac bunt by
Maddie Weeks. A
Rylee Cloud sacrifice fly brought Chance home for the 1-0 lead.
Nicholls responded with a Lilianna Robledo leadoff homerun to tie the game at one apiece.
After three scoreless innings, McNeese added three runs on three hits and took advantage of a Nicholls error. Chances RBI double scored
Rylee Eyster and a two out, two RBI single by Cloud scored two more runs for a 4-1 Cowgirl lead.
Once again, the Colonels responded with two runs in the sixth on a two-run homerun by Erin Krause to cut the lead to 7-3.
The Colonels made the game interesting for the second straight day by pulling to within one run in the seventh inning by scoring three runs on four hits to pull to within 7-6.
With the tying run on third base and two outs,
Maddie Taylor got Reagan Heflin to ground out to third base to end the game.
SCORING
B1- McNeese got on the board first on a sacrifice fly by
Rylee Cloud that scored
Kassidy Chance who led the game off with a double to right field. (McN 1, Nich 0)
T2: Nicholls tied the game when Lilianna Robledo led the inning off with a double to right center, advanced to third on a sac bunt and scored on a ground out to second base (McN 1, Nich 1)
B5- McNeese scored three runs on three hits including a RBI double to center by Chance that scored
Rylee Eyster and a two RBI single by
Rylee Cloud that scored
Maddie Weeks and Chance (McN 4, Nich 1)
T6- Nicholls pulled to within one run with a two RBI homerun by Erin Krause (McN 4, Nich 3)
B6- McNeese added three runs on four hits on an
Onna Pruitt RBI single and a two RBI double by Chance (McN 7, Nich 3)
T7- Nicholls scored three runs on four hits on a RBI single by Madison Moak and a two RBI double by Erin Krause (McN 7, Nich 6)
