Box Score 1 | Box Score 2 PELLA, Iowa – The St. Scholastica softball team saw its season come to an end on Friday, losing to two of the top six teams in the nation at the NCAA Pella Regional, hosted by Central College.

The Saints began the day by facing the No. 1 seed in the regional and sixth-ranked Luther College (Iowa). CSS would fall by an 8-1 score. Then in an elimination game in the late afternoon the Saints faced the No. 2 seed and fifth-ranked Central College and were on the wrong end of a 10-2 score.

In the first game against the Norse, Kali Carlson (Duluth, Minn/Duluth Central HS) doubled with one out in the top of the first. She would advance to third on a passed ball, but would be left stranded. Luther came out swinging in its half of the first with a leadoff double and then a RBI-single to take a 1-0 lead. Later in the inning a hit by pitch with the bases loaded forced in another run to make the score 2-0. The Norse went up 3-0 with a two-out RBI double in the second.

CSS got on the board in the top of the third when Merryssa Tiedeman (Zumbrota, Minn/Zumbrota-Mazeppa HS) hit a 0-2 pitch over the left field fence for her sixth home run of the season to make it 3-1.

It remained 3-1 until the bottom of the sixth when Luther's Kelsey Kittleson hit a grand slam home run as part of a five-run inning to extend the lead to 8-1. That wound up being the final as the Saints were only able to muster three hits in the game.

Darcy Roach (East Grand Forks, Minn./Sacred Heart HS) picked up the loss for the Saints, striking out nine in the defeat. Becca Girvan struck out 10 to earn the win for the Norse (36-7).

The Saints would face the loser of the contest between No. 2-seeded, and host, Central College and the No. 5 seed University of Wisconsin-River Falls. The Falcons, the only other team besides the Saints not ranked in the regional, would pull the upset defeating the Dutch 6-0. So that meant the Saints would play the top two seeds in the regional back-to-back.

Central (36-9) loaded the bases against the Saints with nobody out in the top of the first, but would only come away with one run in the inning. CSS also loaded the bases in the bottom of the first, but came away with nothing.

A pair of St. Scholastica errors in the second led to three Central runs to extend the lead to 4-0. A Central error helped the Saints get on the scoreboard in the bottom of the second as Roach came in to make it 4-1. However, the Saints would leave the bases loaded once again.

The score remained 4-1 until the top of the fifth when the Dutch plated four in the inning to make it 8-1. After the Saints left the bases loaded for the third time in the contest in the bottom of the fifth they finally got another run across in the bottom of the sixth on Theresa Tauer (Plymouth, Minn./Wayzata HS) RBI groundout as Shauney Moen (Oak Grove, Minn./St. Francis HS) came in to score.

Central tacked on two more runs in the top of the seventh to make the final score 10-2 in front of 300 fans at the Kuyper Athletic Complex.

Eight different Saints picked up a hit in the second game. Central recorded 15 hits off Roach, who earned the loss.

The Saints' season ends with a 32-12 overall record and their third NCAA Regional Tournament appearance. The 32 wins are the fourth-most in program history. CSS will have to say goodbye to three seniors: Tiedeman, Tauer and Carlson. Tiedeman and Tauer etched their names in the CSS record books this season and all three will be missed.

For future information on the St. Scholastica softball program, keep checking csssaints.com.