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Northwestern Box Score

DULUTH, Minn. – The St. Scholastica softball team defeated Bethany Lutheran College, 6-4, and then took care of Northwestern College, 4-1, on Friday in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Tournament at Kenwood Field.

The Saints got off to a slow start in their first game of the tourney against Bethany Lutheran. The Vikings took an early 2-0 in the top of the first. CSS cut the lead to one after Shauney Moen (Oak Grove, Minn./St. Francis HS) scored on a passed ball in the bottom of the fourth.

With the score still 2-1 BLC in the bottom of the sixth, Merryssa Tiedeman (Zumbrota, Minn/Zumbrota-Mazeppa HS) and Theresa Tauer (Plymouth, Minn./Wayzata HS) each singled to begin the inning. Then after two straight outs, Jen Falk (Altona, Manitoba/W.C. Miller Collegiate (Rainy River CC)) stepped up and drilled a two-run double to put CSS up 3-2.

Later in the inning, Tiffany Hudack came up in a pinch-hitting role and gave the Saints some insurance with a three-run home run to make it 6-2.

The Vikings did not go down quietly in the seventh with a pair of runs off of a CSS error to make it 6-4. However, Brittni Johnson (Thief River Falls, Minn./Lincoln HS (Northland CC)) got the final batter to fly out to make the final score 6-4.

Johnson improves to 7-1 on the year as she struck out five and allowed just five hits. Bonnie Kowalczyk (Menomonee Falls, Wis./Menomonee Falls HS) was the only Saint with a pair of hits in the game.

The victory advanced the Saints to the semifinals where they met up with the No. 3 seed Northwestern College, who defeated the No. 2 seed University of Minnesota, Morris 5-3 in the first game of the day.

CSS pitcher Jen Falk (Altona, Manitoba/W.C. Miller Collegiate (Rainy River CC)) kept the Eagles in check for much of the game, striking out eight. The Saints took a 1-0 lead after Jordan Spiering (Mounds View, Minn./Irondale HS) hit a solo home run to lead off the bottom of the third. Tiedeman then opened the game up with a two-out, three-run double in the bottom of the fourth to make it 4-0.

Falk had faced just one over the minimum entering the seventh inning, but the Eagles put the first two batters on base in the inning. Falk settled down and even though Northwestern got a run, struck out two of the final three batters to earn her team-high ninth victory of the season.

The two teams that the Saints defeated today, BLC and Northwestern, will face off in an elimination game at 10 a.m. tomorrow. Bethany Lutheran eliminated Minnesota, Morris 3-2 in the third game. The winner of that game will advance to the championship game to face CSS at noon. The winner of the UMAC Tournament will receive an automatic-bid into the NCAA Tournament. Check all of the action live at csssaints.com.