Box Score SALEM, Va. – The Tufts University softball team was eliminated from the NCAA Division III World Series with a 7-1 loss to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh on Friday at the Moyer Complex.
UW-Oshkosh sophomore pitcher Maddie Fink threw a complete game allowing seven hits and one run. The Titans scored three times in their first at bat, then padded their lead with four in the sixth. Mia Steinberg and Casey Maggiore both had two hits for Tufts.
Head coach Lauren Ebstein's Jumbos finish a season in which they won NESCAC and NCAA Regional titles with a 21-7 record. The Titans (29-12) survive and advance to play either Virginia Wesleyan or Birmingham Southern next.
UW-Oshkosh scored their three runs in the first after two were. Acacia Tupa had led off with a double and the Titans loaded the bases with one out. A fly ball to left was the second out, but then Morgan Rau singled to left just in front of a diving Kat Yuzefpolsky scoring two. After a wild pitch advanced the runners to second and third, Amanda McIlhany hit a slow, seeing-eye single through the middle scoring Natalie Dudek for a 3-0 margin. Tufts center fielder Michelle Adelman threw out Rau trying to score on the play.
A two-out double that landed on the left-field foul line by Tufts' Josie Steinberg in the bottom of the first went for naught. Tufts starter Kristina Haghdan then held the Titans scoreless in the second after they put runners on second and third with one out. Haghdan worked a pair of ground ball outs to end the inning.
Tufts got on the scoreboard in the second when Mia Steinberg and Casey Maggiore opened the frame with back-to-back singles. Steinberg took third on a well-hit fly to right by Reegan Coleman, and then scored on Rachel Moore's sacrifice foul fly ball to left making it 3-1.
The Jumbos brought in freshman Sophia DiCocco to pitch in the third. Dudek walked to start the inning and made it to third, but DiCocco got a ground ball out to leave her there.
Adelman led off the Jumbo third with a single. Then with two outs, Nicole Russo singled through the right side and Adelman advanced to third drawing a throw. However, Russo was cut down trying to take second on the play and the inning ended.
DiCocco kept the deficit at 3-1 through the fourth and fifth innings, but ran into trouble in the sixth. Base hits by Emily Cliver, McIlhany and Kailee Garstecki loaded the bases with one out. Back-to-back walks to Ana Iliopoulos and Tupa made it 5-1. A grounder to the right side fielded by DiCocco and a Tufts error brought two more in and UW-Oshkosh led 7-1 after five and a half.
The game went into a weather delay at that point . When the action resumed, Mia Steinberg and Maggiore had one-out base hits for the Jumbos in the sixth. However, Fink finished off her victory by retiring the final five Tufts hitters.
Tupa was 2 for 3 with a run and an rbi atop the Titan batting order, while McIlhany finished 2 for 4 with a run and an rbi.
Hagdhan (2 IP, 5 H, 3R) took the loss for Tufts, while DiCocco went five giving up four hits and three earned runs.
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