Friday, May 24, 2024
by Evan O'Kelly, Assistant Commissioner For Communications

LONGWOOD, Fla. – Christin Haygood delivered her third shutout of the season on Friday afternoon at Boombah-Solders Creek Park, pitching No. 3 UT Tyler to a 3-0 win over Western Washington in the opening game of the 2024 NCAA Division II Softball World Series finals.

The right-hander scattered four hits across her 115-pitch effort, striking out three and walking one on the way to her 22nd victory of the season. UT Tyler improved to 57-8 on the season, is now 4-0 at the NCAA Championships and moved one win away from claiming the 2024 national title.

Western Washington fell to 52-11 with the defeat, and will have to beat UT Tyler twice on Saturday in order to capture its first Division II Softball Championship title in program history.

Alli Kimball and Joie Baker pitched well for the Vikings on Friday, but limiting the Patriots to just three runs wasn’t enough to emerge victorious. Kimball allowed two runs on three hits with a strikeout and three walks in three innings of work. Baker followed by allowing one unearned run on two hits with a strikeout and two walks across the final three innings.

A home run off the bat of Michelle Arias in the bottom of the third proved to be the winning hit, but no Patriot had more than one knock in the game.

The Vikings threatened in the top of the first inning, when Kanilehua Pitoy singled and Hailey Rath reached on an error to put runners on second and third with one out. Haygood buckled down however, retiring the next two batters she faced with a strikeout and a ground out to eliminate the threat.

Kimball had to work out of a similar jam in the bottom of the frame, as the Patriots also put a pair of runners on their first time up. Maleah Andrews handled a pair of ground balls in the inning, helping Kimball keep the game scoreless. The pressure continued in the bottom of the second, when a leadoff single by Makayla Garcia and a pair of walks loaded the bases with one out. This time, Kimball got a key play from Rath throwing a runner out at home before ending the inning with a strikeout.

After Haygood extended her streak of consecutive hitters retired to eight, her team rewarded her with the lead in the bottom of the third. Courtney Plocheck drew a leadoff walk, and Arias fouled off five pitches before landing a 3-2 offering over the fence in left field to make the score 2-0. The long ball was the eighth of the season for Arias, and she upped her season RBI count to 53.

A pair of diving catches by the Patriots were crucial in keeping the Vikings off the scoreboard. JT Smith laid out into the gap in right-center to steal a leadoff extra-base hit from Rath in the top of the fourth, and Cassidi Mullen tracked back and made an extended grab to rob McKenna Crum from a single in the fifth that would’ve given WWU two on with one out.

A defensive miscue on a sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the fifth gave the Patriots an insurance run, as Smith scampered home from first base on a pair of errant throws to make the score 3-0.

WWU continued to create opportunities, as Pitoy shot the gap in left-center for a leadoff double and Rath drew a walk to put two on with no outs in the sixth. Haygood navigated out of the jam unscathed however, retiring the next three batters on ground outs to keep the shutout intact. Haygood sealed the shutout by retiring the Vikings in order in the top of the seventh.

Pitoy was the lone Viking with multiple hits in the game, going 2-for-3.

GAME NOTES: Friday marked just the fourth time this season that WWU was shut out in a game…Friday was UT Tyler’s second win over WWU at the World Series, after it claimed a 10-1 victory in Round 2 of the tournament on Monday.

GNAC HISTORY IN THE MAKING: WWU is the first team since the GNAC was founded in 2001 to reach the NCAA Division II College World Series. The Vikings finished second in the GNAC regular-season standings with a league record of 19-5, before going 3-0 on their home field to capture the program’s third GNAC Championships tournament trophy. From there, the Vikings went 4-1 at the west regional and defeated Cal State Dominguez Hills 2-1 in a three-game super regional series to advance to the NCAA Championships. Overall in 2024 WWU went 9-2 on its home field in the playoffs. The Vikings set the GNAC record for consecutive wins to start a season with 13, broke the school record with a mid-season, 17-game winning streak and shattered the previous program record for wins in a season which was 34. WWU’s 52 wins this spring are fourth-most in GNAC history, and the most by a conference team since Humboldt State won 54 games in 2006.

PATH TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP: The Vikings have gone 12-4 in the 2024 postseason, including a resilient mark of 7-0 when facing elimination. Ahead of the weekend’s championship series, WWU has gone 8-0-2 in series against a single opponent this season (two, three, or four games). Western Washington is 8-1 in extra-inning games and holds a 17-6 record in games that were decided by a single run.