Championship Central
GLVC Sports Network Replay:
#1 UMSL v. #2 UINDY
EAST PEORIA, Ill. – No. 1 University of Missouri-St. Louis has garnered its third-straight Great Lakes Valley Conference Softball Championship after defeating No. 2 University of Indianapolis, 4-0, in eight innings at the EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Illinois.
With the three-peat, UMSL becomes the first active league member to accomplish such a feat, and only the second GLVC softball team to ever do so since former league member SIU Edwardsville won three in a row from 2006-08.
The Tritons relied on three-time GLVC Pitcher of the Year Hannah Perryman to go the distance, as she pitched all 27 innings during the Championship weekend with an unblemished 4-0 record, one perfect game and three shutouts.
In a pitcher’s duel, UIndy’s Morgan Foley kept the Tritons off the scoreboard, racking up a game-high 13 strikeouts and allowing no hits through the first seven frames. But it was UMSL’s Sara Kern who busted through with the game-winning, RBI single in the top of the eighth via the third pitch she saw, bringing in Brianna Butler who initially reached base on a walk. The very next batter, Jena Boudreau, swung for the fences on a 2-1 count and brought three more runs to the plate, extending the Triton lead to 4-0 and the eventual final score.
In the bottom half of the extra inning, Perryman shutdown the Greyhounds’ last three attempts at a comeback, striking out the first batter and generating a pop out and the final out of the game in the form of a foul out.
With the victory, the Tritons earned the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Division II Midwest Region Tournament and will learn its next opponent when the NCAA announces its championship field Monday at 10 a.m. ET. The selection show can be seen live on NCAA.com
here.