BOX SCORE
SALEM, Ore. – The NAIA's No. 8-ranked Corban softball team was eliminated from the Cascade Collegiate Conference Softball Championships following an 8-0 loss in six innings to No. 24-ranked Oregon Tech Thursday on Warrior Field.
Corban (40-13) will now have to wait and see if it receives an at-large berth into the NAIA National Championships Opening Rounds when the participants are announced on Tuesday, May 7th, after the final Top 25 poll of the regular season is released by the NAIA office.
Senior
Stephanie Nippert led the Warriors' offense with a perfect 2-for-2 showing that included a single and a double, while juniors
Courtney Castronovo and
Lounette Jackson were the only other Corban players to register a hit in the game. Senior
Amy Greenough went the opening 4.2 innings allowing five earned runs on six hits with a game-high tying four strikeouts before turning the ball over to the relief duo of senior
Chelsea Schriber and sophomore
Jessica Slate. The pair would combine to allow three earned runs on three hits in 1.2 innings of work.
Oregon Tech (37-15) would get a pair of hits from Shauna Collins, Melissa Logan, and McKenzie Shrum, as Logan and Taylor Schmidt each belted home runs for the Owls with the duo combining to drive in five of OIT's eight runs. Along with her offensive performance, Schmidt also pitching a complete game allowing a mere four hits to go along with a game-high tying four strikeouts en route to picking up her team-leading 23rd win of the season.
Corban had a chance to get on the board in the bottom of the first inning when Castronovo belted a 3-2 pitch down the left field line that nearly cleared the fence falling just to the left of the foul pole with Nippert standing on second base.
After breathing a shy of relief, Oregon Tech started the scoring in the top of the second inning thanks to a solo home run by Logan that landed 20 feet beyond the left field fence for her 12th long ball of the season as the Owls opened up an early one-run lead (1-0).
OIT would add to its lead in the top of the fourth inning when Schmidt belted a two-run home run to center field that also scored Ashley Sfetku and began a span of seven runs over the next three innings by Oregon Tech.
Corban would threaten to score in both the fifth and sixth innings, as the host Warriors got runners on second and third with two outs in the fifth inning only to have the at-bat end with a pop out to short. One inning later, Corban would threaten once again by putting runners on first and second with one out only to have OIT's pitching step up to the challenge ending the game and helping the Owls advance to the championship game against The College of Idaho.
