By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Having won four straight and six of their last seven to fight back into a tie for the Horizon League regular season championship with Wright State, both at 19-10 in the league, Northern Kentucky’s Division I record-breaking Norse found themselves in a do-or-die final game Saturday in Dayton after beating Wright State on back-to-back days.
But after giving up six runs in the first, NKU refused to give up, chipping away with five doubles, a triple and a pair of home runs concluding in a three-run top of the ninth to tie it at 9-9. Unfortunately, NKU would have to negotiate a bottom of the ninth, which the pitching-limited Norse could not.
Wright State would get a walk and a hit batter to put two on for Andrew Patrick, who promptly blasted a three-run, game-winning walk-off home run to send the 32-22 Norse home a game behind Wright State in the regular season and with a No. 2 seed in the conference tournament starting Wednesday.
Prior to Saturday, NKU’s pitching had held up well this series against a Wright State team that had scored 42 runs in winning two of three at NKU a month ago. In this series, the Norse had won 8-5 behind Ben Gerl (4-6) and 8-2 behind the now-healthy Tanner Gillis (7-2). But the pitching gave out in Game 3.
It’s just as head Coach Dizzy Peyton says about this NKU team, despite its pitching issues, its competitiveness does not give out as those three runs in the top of the ninth showed with a Liam McFadden-Ackman home run starting the rally off.
As the No. 1 seed in this week’s Horizon Tournament, Wright State (31-22) will host the Wednesday- through-Saturday affair with No. 2 NKU’s first game Thursday at 3 p.m. against the winner of Wednesday’s game between No. 3 Oakland and No. 6 Youngstown State. All games in the tournament will be streamed on ESPN+.
SCORING SUMMARY
NORTHERN KENTUCKY (32-22- 0 0 0 1 0 1 2 2 3 – 9 13 1
WRIGHT STATE 6 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 3 – 12 12 2
WP: Hartzell (2-1) LP: McClanahan (2-4)
LEADING HITTERS: NKU: Doubles: Wood 2, Devenport, Lane, Rowe; Triple, Simpson; HR: McFadden-Ackman, 2. WSU: Double; Sass; Triple, Fultz; HR: Patrick.
RECORD-SETTING NKU SOFTBALL WINS 5 IN A ROW ONLY TO FALL IN FINALS
After losing their postseason Horizon Tournament opener last week, the Norse women roared back for five straight wins into the championship game after beating unbeaten Cleveland to go to a winner-take-all championship game. But after beating CSU 5-4 in the next-to-last game, the Norse fell in the title game, 6-1.
Dropping that tournament opener didn’t keep NKU out of its second straight championship game after a 7-2 loss to Robert Morris. But in quick succession over the next five days, NKU beat IUPUI 3-2, Oakland 7-4, Youngstown State 6-3, Robert Morris 5-0 in a return match and then Cleveland State 5-4 to reach the championship game.
Grad student Lauryn Hicks from Kokomo, Ind., NKU’s winningest pitcher at 13-8, won four of those games, including the first Cleveland State game with a nine-strikeout performance, and was named to the all-tournament team.
NKU’s Sydni Barnes (Mt. Orab, Ohio), Ella LeMonier (Orland Hills, Ill.) and Olivia Pastin (Crestwood, Ky.) joined Hicks, earning all-tournament honors. Lemonier, who went two for three in the first CSU game with a triple, a walk, a run scored and an RBI, led NKU in hitting with a .384 average for the season.
After jumping out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning of the final game, with Barnes doubling LeMonier home, the Norse could not get another score as the Vikings broke things open with a five-run fifth.
NKU’s 27 wins (against 22 losses) were an NCAA Division I record for the Norse who finished 14-10 in the Horizon.
Contact Dan Weber at dweber3440@aol.com. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @dweber3440.