Bulldogs clipped in walk-off defeat on opening round's first day

By Jacob Knabel on May. 17, 2021 in Softball

CHICKASHA, Okla. – A third-inning home run from Hhana Haro put the first run of the game on the board, but the Concordia University Softball team was outlasted, 5-4, in nine innings by 22nd-ranked Grand View University (Iowa) on Monday (May 17). The two sides met as part of the Chickasha (Okla.) Bracket in the 2021 NAIA National Championship Opening Round. The rain cleared and the sun came out in Oklahoma, where the Bulldogs made the program’s third national tournament appearance.

Head Coach Shawn Semler’s squad endured one rough inning that played a critical role in the outcome. Concordia (32-12) will now face elimination on Tuesday.

“I thought the girls played hard today,” Semler said. “It was a really good game between two well-matched teams. They have a good lineup so it’s tough to give them extra outs – and they took advantage. I love how we battled back to tie it up. Our bats went silent from there and we paid the price. Tomorrow will be a tall order with us meeting the top seed. How we handle the loss today and we how we come back will say a lot about who we are.”

Both starting pitchers went the distance in a mostly well-played ballgame. After the Bulldog offense went down in order in both the eighth and ninth innings, the Vikings (43-11) put a runner on third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. That’s when Alyx Witt’s ground ball up the middle pushed across the game winner. Many of the 12 Viking hits looked that way over the course of the day – ground balls through the infield.

A four-run Grand View fourth provide a 4-2 lead for the Vikings at the time. Concordia quickly evened things up with Tori Homolka’s bloop single that landed just inside the left field line and scored a pair of runs. Viking pitcher Hannah Pals locked in from that point on and held the Bulldogs without a hit over the sixth through ninth innings. Concordia wasted a leadoff walk by Allysia Thayer in the seventh.

Grand View got four runs in the fourth on six hits (all singles), mostly of the seeing-eye variety. An error with two outs paved the way for half of those runs to come across to score. Witt finished 4-for-5 with the aforementioned game-winning RBI.

The six Bulldog hits all came from the fop four hitters in the lineup: Haro (2-for-4), Jenessa Jarvis (1-for-3), Camry Moore (1-for-4) and Homolka (2-for-4). Thayer put together some nice at bats out of the No. 8 spot and worked two walks. From the leadoff position, Haro extended her hitting streak to 15 games.

In the circle, Moore covered all 8.2 innings before the winning tally came home. She allowed three earned runs and recorded three strikeouts without issuing a walk.

Concordia has also made NAIA national tournament appearances in the state of Oklahoma in 2014 and 2015. The trip to Oklahoma City in 2015 included a win over Grand View. It marked the first and still the only national tournament win in program history.

With potential inclement weather on the way on Tuesday, game time has been moved up to a 10:30 a.m. CT first pitch. At that time, the Bulldogs will take on top-seeded University of Science & Arts of Oklahoma. The Drovers were upset by fourth-seeded Bethany College (Kan.) in the very first game of the bracket. The Concordia-USAO winner would play again on Tuesday against Grand View.