SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Season long themes continued on day two of the GPAC softball tournament. The Concordia University softball team always found a way to beat Mount Marty, but never could solve Morningside, a perennial conference title contender. A Kylee Nixon walk-off RBI single completed the Bulldog comeback in a 6-5 win over Mount Marty to begin the day. Concordia quickly turned around and dropped a 2-0 pitcher’s duel to the host Mustangs.
The location for action on Thursday and Friday (May 2-3) was the Jensen Softball Complex in Sioux City, Iowa, where the Bulldogs celebrated a GPAC tournament title in 2015. Head coach Shawn Semler’s squad finished the 2019 season with a 28-12 overall mark.
“I’m proud of the girls. We feel good about the season we had,” Semler said. “I’m already thinking about things we have to work on when we come back in the fall. I’ve learned a lot about this team and what we have coming in. I hate to lose. There are no good losses. That being said, it would have been easy to pack it in in that first game and we didn’t do that. Then against Morningside we played with everything we had. We hit some balls really hard right at people. It was one of those games were we couldn’t catch a break.”
In what wound up being the season finale for Concordia, freshman Camry Moore did a commendable job of limiting Morningside (28-8) to two runs on five hits over six innings of work in the circle. Unfortunately, Mustang ace pitcher Hallie Misiaszek has had the Bulldogs’ number. She fired a six-hit shutout on Friday. Half of those hits came courtesy of sophomore Tori Homolka.
Morningside got a run in the first inning on Rebecca Riley’s RBI single and another in the fourth via Cortney Joiner’s RBI base hit. Concordia threatened in the sixth when singles by Kylee Nixon and Homolka put two runners on base with one out. Misiaszek then got Jenessa Jarvis to ground into a double play. A pair of Bulldogs also reached base in a scoreless seventh inning.
The Bulldogs extended their season by a couple of hours with a thrilling rally that bounced the Lancers (21-23) from the postseason. On Thursday Concordia came back from a 4-0 deficit to defeat Mount Marty. This time the Lancers built a 5-1 lead with the help of two Amber Writer home runs. The Bulldogs began to chip away in the sixth when Elanna Osthoff (homered in the fourth inning) knocked in a run with a base hit.
Down 5-2 in the bottom of the seventh, Concordia kept the line moving with a couple of walks to begin the frame, an RBI single by Hhana Haro (two runs scored on the play) and a sac fly from Moore that tied it, 5-5. Nixon followed by stepping into the role of hero. She walked it off with a base hit to send Osthoff to the plate. That made a winner of Moore, who fired all seven innings and surrendered four earned runs.
The early afternoon victory resulted in the Bulldogs being one of four teams left standing in an overall solid first season for Semler as head coach at Concordia. There is plenty of reason to believe the Bulldogs will be better equipped to succeed in these types of big games next year. Haro and Homolka are building blocks of the lineup while young players like Moore and Nixon figure to continue to rise. Concordia will say goodbye to impact seniors such as Leah Kalkwarf, Jamie Lefebure and Brittany Woolridge.
Said Semler, “Camry pitched two very good games back-to-back. It’s great to see that we can throw her like that in both games in a day and have those results. I’m excited to get going with next year’s team.”