The Dordt University softball team shutout Ottawa University - Arizona (OUAZ) 2-0 in game one of the NAIA Softball Championship First Round - Ashland Bracket played at Laurel Park in Ashland, Oregon.
The Defenders, now 40-12 on the season, will play defending champion and sixth-ranked Southern Oregon tonight at 6pm (CST). The five-team, double-elimination bracket is played over the next four days and will conclude on Thursday, May 14 with the winner qualifying for the 10-team NAIA World Series in Columbus, Georgia.
Rylee Yager (19-8) pitched a complete-game, two-hit game for her seventh shutout and 19th win of the season. Yager allowed just three OUAZ baserunners on two hits and one walk and struck out seven. The freshman retired the Spirit in order in four of the seven innings and did not allow a runner past second base.
Scoreless until the bottom of the fourth inning, the Defenders broke through with a run on a two-out double by Tera Lynn Price that scored
Peyton Whipple from second. Dordt picked up a huge insurance run in the home-half of the fifth when Yager led off with a single, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from
Annabelle Hensley and a RBI double by
Lauren Steenstra.
Yager and the Dordt defense secured the win from there as they retired seven consecutive Spirit hitters until a leadoff single by Brianna Humphries in the seventh.
Price paced the Defenders 7-hit attack with a 2-for-3 performance and one RBI. Five additional Defenders had one hit each.
Stephanie Cortazar (15-4) allowed seven hits and two earned runs with five strikeouts. Humphries and Ava Seguin, the Newcomer of the Year in the Great Southwest Athletic Conference), had one hit each for OUAZ (33-17).
Notes:
- this was the first game of the five team, Ashland Bracket
- today's game was the first match-up ever played between OUAZ and Dordt
- the Defenders earned their first ever win at the NAIA Championship
- this is the second appearance for the Defenders at the championship (2001)
- Steenstra's RBI double in the fifth inning extended her hit streak to 20
- Steenstra pushed her single-season RBI record to 79, third most in the NAIA
- Yager has hit safely in six consecutive games
- Yager earned her seventh win in her last eight decisions.
- the Defenders snapped OUAZ's four-game win streak
- Dordt is one of three teams from the GPAC to earn a spot in the 48-team, championship field
