IRVINE, Calif.- The No. 11 Concordia University Irvine softball team played its first game in the NCAA West Regional on Thursday, and wound up having to play a second time in one day. CUI was ranked as the No.1 seed in the West Regional, earning a bye for the first day of the tournament. Their first game was 12 p.m. on Thursday against the No. 5 seed University of Hawaii at Hilo. The Eagles faced the Vulcans twice recently at the Automatic Qualifier Pod Series and beat them both times by one run. However, this time the Vulcans were able to get some revenge. CUI regrouped after a narrow loss to survive in the double-elimination format, after redeeeming themselves in a big way against Northwest Nazarene in the late game.
 
Game One: CUI 3, UHH 4
All-American Callie Nunes started the Eagles first game of the day and tossed a couple scoreless innings off the bat. She was relieved by Kelsea Sweeney in the third inning, who ended up throwing the rest of the game for the Green and Gold.
 
The Vulcans took a 3-0 lead in the third but the Eagles came right back in the bottom of the fourth, tying the match 3-3. A pair of singles by McKinsey Thorpe and Sydney Sprinkle began the inning. Both Thorpe and Sprinkle were then picked up by Missy Nemeth who launched a bomb over the centerfield fence. Nemeth's game-tying home run was her eighth homer of the season.
 
The game was locked at 3-3 for the next three innings and ended going into extrass. CUI had a scoring opportunity in the bottom of the seventh, but the UHH defense made an outstanding double play that ended up shutting down the Eagles momentum.

UHH was able to get one run across in the eighth and then held on for the hard-fough 4-3 victory.
 
The loss to the Vulcans snapped the Eagles nine-game winning streak and forced them to play a second game of the day against Northwest Nazarene.
 
"Obviously the first game was really tough," said Sprinkle. "Although we did lose I was really proud of us because we responded back. Once we get the momentum going we can come back from a deficit. It's not really something we need to be worried about. We just got beat, wasn't anything we could really do more about that but we didn't let that affect us coming into (game two verses NNU)."   
 
Game Two: CUI 9, NNU 0 
The Green and Gold came into game two hot, scoring at least one run in every inning. They run-ruled the Nighthawks in four innings, posting nine runs on the board. 
 
 "I thought really good response for us today," said head coach and athletic director Crystal Rosenthal. "Kinda a drag right to lose the first game the way that we did so I was proud of our team. Had a lot of good quality at-bats, selfless at-bats to score some runs."
 
Sweeney continued to pitch extremely well on the mound, putting in three great innings of work. She was efficient, giving up only three hits. Later, Erika Morris was put in to close the game out for the Eagles, and she gave up just one hit. Sweeney improved to 10-4 on the season with the victory and her ERA dropped to 1.74.
 
"We are asking our pitchers to keep us in the game," continued Rosenthal. "We were in the game in the first game down by three and our offense responded. Kelsea made a really good pitch to give up the final run of the first game. Kelsea's been a huge addition to our team because she's got a really good pace. I thought Erika came in and did really big things today."
 
CUI was patient in the box, scoring their first four runs off of consecutive walks. Then the Eagles offense took care of the rest. Sprinkle had a pair of singles. Nemeth hit a deep sacrifice fly to score Megan Massa. Marisa Stockton was big time in her at-bats today, going 3-for-3. In Stockton's first at-bat she singled to left field, and then in her second time to the plate, she smacked a hard single up the middle that scored two runs. In her third appearance, she had an epic solo-shot home run that finalized the Eagles score at 9-0. 
 
"I think once our team gets that momentum going, even just a walk or any type of hit, we definitely build off of it every single time," said Stockton. "I'm just ecstatic that I can help this team, that we can get those wins and I feel like I'm finally seeing the ball well so I think one small adjustment and we are good to go all the way." 
 
CUI plays again on Friday at 2:30 p.m. against Central Washington.
 
To view the CUI softball team's updated schedule, CLICK HERE.