EAST PEORIA, Ill. – The No. 2 seed and West Division Champions, Missouri-St. Louis earned its second-straight GLVC Softball Championship title Sunday, with a 3-0 victory over No. 4 Bellarmine at EastSide Centre in East Peoria, Ill.
Sophomore pitcher and reigning Co-Pitcher of the Year Hannah Perryman tossed a complete game and registered her second no-hitter of the season; with the first one against William Jewell (March 29) in five innings. It was Katie Wood who put the final exclamation point on a GLVC Championship weekend that saw a combined total of 25 homeruns leave the yard, which matched last year long ball total. The Tritons’ junior infielder sent a two-out walk off homerun to left center field in the bottom of the third inning to give the Tritons back-to-back titles.
Bellarmine threaten to score in the bottom of the sixth inning with the bases loaded with no outs, but Perryman went on to retire the next three batters en route to 12 strike outs on the day. She finished the tournament with a 0.32 ERA after fanning 22.0 innings, hurling 44 strikeouts, and registered three wins.
Missouri-St. Louis (45-6) advanced to the championship game with wins over No. 7 Illinois Springfield (1-0), No. 3 Truman State (5-0), and No. 4 Bellarmine (3-2) in the winner bracket. Meanwhile, Bellarmine (37-16) defeated No. 5 William Jewell (3-0), No. 1 Indianapolis (8-0), and fell to UMSL (3-2) which sent the Knights to the bottom of the bracket to face Indianapolis where Bellarmine prevailed in a 4-0 win.
With the victory, the Tritons earned the league's automatic bid to the NCAA DII Midwest Region Tournament, and will learn its next opponent when the NCAA announces its championship field Monday at 10 a.m. ET. To watch the selection show, click
here.