EVANSVILLE, Ind. - Two of the Midwest Region's top softball teams according to the initial NCAA regional rankings released on Wednesday were the No. 7 squad in the Midwest, Truman, and the team in the top spot, No. 5 Southern Indiana. Sunday afternoon, those two programs squared off with the Screaming Eagles winning game one, 9-5, and the Bulldogs taking the nightcap, 7-3.

With the split, Truman earned its first win over a top-five team since nearly three years ago to the day (5-0 vs. No. 4 UMSL - April 25, 2014) and sits at 32-18 overall, including 15-9 in the GLVC. On the other side, Southern Indiana is looking at an overall mark of 39-9, 18-6 in league play. Sunday, the Bulldogs were led by Lex Van Nostrand and Alyssa Rivera with four hits apiece while Valerie Schmidt and Morgan McMahan each had three base knocks.

In the first game, the home team was up 4-0 after two innings and the score stayed that way until the top of the fourth. In that half, Van Nostrand hit a solo home run to left, her 10th of the season and 29th of her career, Schmidt tripled in Ashley Murphy and Riley Cook pushed Schmidt across with a sacrifice fly to center. Southern Indiana pushed its lead back to six with a five spot in the bottom of the fifth, but Truman wasn't done scoring quite yet. In the top of the seventh, Rivera cut the margin to four with a two-run bomb to left, but that would be all the offense of the game for the Bulldogs. That blast gives the freshman seven for the year.

Nicolette Simpson (13-6) took the loss after lasting just 1.1 innings with four runs given up, three earned, on three hits, four walks, and a strikeout. In relief, Alyssa Hajduk went the final four and two-thirds with 10 hits, five earned runs surrendered, three free passes, and five punchouts.

In the nightcap, Van Nostrand got the party started for the Purple and White with an RBI double in the top of the first before Southern Indiana got the lead back with two in the bottom of the first and another in the third. However, the Screaming Eagles wouldn't get any more runs across as the Bulldogs tallied one run apiece in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings as well as three in the seventh. During that span, McMahan had a solo shot, her second, her and Van Nostrand each notched RBI doubles, Cook and Rivera hit RBI singles, and Christa Reisinger touched home thanks to a wild pitch.

Lauren Dale (15-6) came up big once again for Truman as she went the distance for the 12th time this year with three earned runs given up on just five hits, one walk and two strikeouts.

Next up, the Bulldogs will play at Bellarmine on Monday with first pitch in game one set for 12 p.m. eastern time.

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