BENTONVILLE, Ark.—For the third time this season, Southern Nazarene picked up a 1-0 win over Oklahoma Baptist. This time was the biggest of the three, as it advances Southern Nazarene to the semifinals of the Great American Conference tournament.
Southern Nazarene (25-24) used an incredible pitching performance from Jennifer Romero-Ivarson, who notched her third shutout of the season over Oklahoma Baptist (33-22). She mowed down batters all game long, racking up 8 strikeouts, which ties a season-high.
The teams combined for just 7 hits in the game. OBU slightly outhit the Crimson Storm 4 to 3, but SNU was able to manufacture a run while keeping OBU off the scoreboard with 6 runners left on base.
Southern Nazarene's lone run came in the third inning after back-to-back one-out walks to Liana Heshiki and Natalie Jones. Noa Dodson came into pinch run for Heshiki, which proved to be a big move as she advanced to third on a wild pitch and later scored the game's only run on Caitlyn Curlee's (Bates) sacrifice fly.
Maybe the play of the game came in the sixth inning as with one out, Oklahoma Baptist roped a line drive towards center field. It looked as though the Bison were set to put the tying run on base, if not in scoring position. Sydney Sundbye had other ideas, though, laying out to her left and coming up with a diving catch to keep the Bison off the base paths. Romero-Ivarson rewarded her defense by forcing a popout to end the sixth and an easy 1-2-3 seventh inning to close out the game.
The Storm now await their opponent for Sunday's semifinals game. SNU will play either the No. 1 seed Arkansas Tech, or the No. 8 seed Arkansas-Monticello. The Storm split with Monticello and dropped 2 of 3 against Tech this season. First pitch will be Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m.
If the Storm win and advance to the championship game, they will play at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday evening.
