ST. JOSEPH, Minn. – Neither the College of Saint Benedict softball team nor UW-La Crosse took the most conventional route to the national tournament – but they both found a way to get in.
CSB kicks off its 2019 NCAA Tournament run Friday, May 10, when it takes on La Crosse at 2 p.m. in the first game of the Pella, Iowa Regional, hosted by Central College. Host-school Central is the No. 1 seed, CSB is No. 2, the Eagles are No. 3 and Lake Forest is the fourth seed and rounds out the four-team regional tournament. Central and Lake Forest play in a 4:30 p.m. game following CSB and the Eagles' matchup.
Saint Benedict (27-13) earned its second straight – and fourth ever – NCAA berth by virtue of a strong schedule, both in conference and nonconference play. In the final region polls before the national tournament field was selected, CSB moved from eighth to fifth in the Midwest Region, thanks in part to a split with UW-Eau Claire, which was ranked second in in the Central Region when the two teams played on April 30. CSB also had wins against regionally ranked St. Thomas, St. Kate's, WPI and Muskingum.
The Eagles earned their sixth NCAA bid in program history thanks to a WIAC Tournament title. La Crosse (27-15) started the tournament with a 13-4 loss to UW-Oshkosh, and gave up 10 runs in the top of the seventh inning alone. From there, however, La Crosse turned things around and won its next four games – including 2-0 and 2-1 wins over Eau Claire in a pair of must-win championship games.
Leading UWL is senior pitcher Caitlyn Hughes, who has a 3.00 ERA, 13 wins and 84 strikeouts. Hughes, along with Mia Schmidtke and Sydne Shattuck, earned All-WIAC First Team honors this week. Shattuck has a .375 batting average, and also threw 65.1 innings on the mound. Schmidtke leads the WIAC with 10 home runs and is third with a .598 slugging percentage.
It was sophomore Maddie Muelken who picked up the complete-game victory over Eau Claire in the first of the two championship games Sunday. Kendra Leis had a two-run homer, and Schmidtke had a solo homer in the second game.
Senior Kate Deming gets another shot at CSB's single-season hits record thanks to the team's tournament berth. She smashed the school's career hits record and is at 228 and counting, and is one away from tying the single-season record with 62 hits. She leads the team with a .443 batting average and a .657 slugging percentage. Kendra Swanson has a team-high 22 RBIs. Sophomore Ally Hjort and first year Grace Gilmore are both at the top of the MIAC with ERAs of 1.48 and 1.29, respectively. The duo also has a combined 164 strikeouts, and account for 21 of the team's 27 wins.
This will mark the fourth meeting between CSB and La Crosse. Saint Benedict won the neutral-site meeting 6-3 last year in Rochester, but the Eagles won 9-5 in 2017 in a Rochester Dome game. The two teams have several common opponents, including MIAC rivals St. Kate's and St. Thomas, and WIAC rival Eau Claire. La Crosse swept St. Kate's, lost twice to the Tommies and split with Eau Claire in the regular season before sweeping the Blugolds for the WIAC title.
The winner of Friday's game moves on to play the winner of Game 2 at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 11. Friday's loser plays the loser of Game 2 at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. The winners of games 3 and 4 play at 4 p.m., and the regional championship game is scheduled for 1 p.m. Sunday.
Central heads into the national tournament 26-8 after winning the ARC title, and Lake Forest is 24-15. CSB is 3-4 all-time against Central, including a 5-4 win in Tucson in 2018. Saint Benedict also played Central a trio of times in the team's first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 1993 in Pella. The Dutch won two of the three games, but a 4-1 win in the region championship marked CSB's first-ever NCAA Tournament win. CSB beat Lake Forest 7-0 last season in an elimination game at the NCAA Tournament in Decorah, Iowa.
