Dani Cole high fives with Kaia Nisby
Crash Kamon
0
CUI CUI 41-10
2
Winner Azusa Pacific APU-SB 30-21
CUI CUI
41-10
0
Final
2
Azusa Pacific APU-SB
30-21
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
CUI CUI 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 1
Azusa Pacific APU-SB 0 0 0 0 2 0 X 2 7 1

W: Korstrom, Katie (18-6) L: Alvarez, Daniela (10-3)

9
Winner CUI CUI 42-10
1
Azusa Pacific APU-SB 30-22
Winner
CUI CUI
42-10
9
Final
1
Azusa Pacific APU-SB
30-22
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 R H E
CUI CUI 0 1 0 3 2 1 2 9 13 1
Azusa Pacific APU-SB 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 5 1

W: Entrup, Katlin (15-3) L: Pagan, Samantha (1-2)

Game Recap: Softball | | Ben Rosehart

A Tourney Tune-Up: No. 13 CUI Splits With APU Before Playoffs

Top-Seeded Concordia Faces HPU Wednesday In PacWest Tournament

AZUSA, Calif. – No. 13 Concordia University Irvine put a final bow on a fantastic regular season by splitting a road doubleheader with Azusa Pacific before the postseason begins in May.

The Golden Eagles had already captured the PacWest Conference crown for the fourth straight full season after sweeping Dominican last week.  CUI will be the No. 1 seed in the first-ever PacWest Conference Tournament for softball that will be held in La Mirada, Calif. and hosted by Biola.  Biola is the No. 2 seed, APU is the third seed and Hawaii Pacific secured the fourth spot for the double-elimination tournament that begins on Wednesday and runs through next Friday, May 5.

CUI finished 27-5 in league play and 42-10 overall in the regular season. The Concordia pitching staff also enters the postseason with the best Team Earned Run Average in all of NCAA DII by a long shot with a microscopic 0.92 ERA. The Golden Eagles have remarkably led in that category for nearly two months.

Game 1: APU 2, CUI 0

Azusa Pacific clinched a spot in the PacWest Tournament with a win in the first game of the day. Daniela Alvarez was the hard-luck loser despite pitching well for four innings. APU scraped together two runs in the fifth before Cortney Koelmans entered and cooled off the Cougar bats. She struck out four in two total innings of work.

Arguably the best scoring chance for CUI came in the second inning. Center fielder Kaia Nisby led off with an infield single and then stole second base with no outs. Unfortunately the offense couldn't get her home. 

Another opportunity to plate a run came in the fifth but pinch-runner Mia Saucedo was thrown out trying to score on a single by Megan Massa.

Massa went 2-for-4 while Jocelyn Pino and Missy Nemeth each added a single.

Game 2: CUI 9, APU 1

Dani Cole had a monster performance in game two and was just a home run shy of the cycle. She went 3-for-3 with a sacrifice fly and finished with a career-high four RBI.  Her RBI triple in the second opened the scoring and the golden Eagles never looked back.

Katlin Entrup improved to 15-3 with another top-notch performance in the circle.  She only faced one batter over the minimum in the first four innings of work.  Then she wiggled out of too much damage in the fifth by notching her fourth strikeout of the afternoon.

Callie Nunes entered for the final two frames and struck out three batters while only allowing one hit.

On Deck for top-seeded CUI is a date with no. 4 seed Hawaii Pacific on Wednesday, May 3 in the PacWest Tournament in La Mirada.  Win or lose, the Golden Eagles will then play again on Thursday as they try to navigate to Championship Friday and prevent any of the other three schools from stealing the auto-bid into the NCAA DII West Regional.  

CUI was voted No. 1 in the recent West Regional Rankings. APU and Biola were on the fringe in the No. 8 and No. 9 spots.

CLICK HERE for the full CUI softball schedule

 
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