EAST PEORIA, Ill. - Senior second baseman, Valerie Schmidt, isn't quite ready for her career to be over. Friday, with the score tied 3-3 against Rockhurst in a do-or-die game, Schmidt belted a three-run walk-off home run to center field off of the GLVC Pitcher of the Year that kept Truman's hopes alive in the GLVC Tournament.

The Bulldogs won a back-and-forth affair to improve to 37-20 overall while the Hawks, currently ranked seventh in the Midwest Region, fall to 31-22 on the season and will await their fate in Monday's selection show. Truman will now face seventh-seeded Bellarmine in another elimination game with first pitch set for 3 p.m. at the EastSide Centre.

Rockhurst's Bridgette Sappington, who was declared the league's best pitcher at Wednesday's awards banquet, suffered just her seventh loss of the year (22-7). On the other side, Lauren Dale picked up her 19th victory (19-7) and went the distance for the 15th time of the season with three earned runs surrendered on four hits, just one walk and five strikeouts.

Getting to the breakdown, the Purple and White were first on the board thanks to an RBI single to left field from Lex Van Nostrand in the bottom of the first that scored Christa Reisinger. After Rockhurst took a 2-1 lead in the second, Truman bounced right back in the third when Jamie Fowle reached on a fielder's choice and Schmidt touched the plate to make it 2-2.

Four frames later in the top of the seventh, the Hawks hit a one-out solo shot to left to go back up, 3-2, and then came the bottom of the seventh. Reisinger reached on a dropped fly ball by the left fielder and moved up to second before Alyssa Rivera moved her over to third with a sacrifice bunt. Morgan McMahan then reached on another error, this time by the third baseman, and Michaela Mooney pinch-ran for her to steal second. Next up, Van Nostrand came through with a run-scoring single to left followed by Schmidt's game-winning blast (VIDEO), her third of the year.

Live stats and GLVCSN coverage for the Bellarmine game will be available right here at TrumanBulldogs.com.

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