Midwest 1 Regional Central

ST. LOUIS - Missed opportunities. That was the story for the fifth-seeded Truman State University softball team on Friday as it stranded 12 baserunners in the second elimination game of the day, a 4-2 loss to No. 25/top-seeded Missouri-St. Louis. The sixth 40-win team in Bulldog history now makes the trek home while the Tritons will look to defeat fourth-seeded Wayne State twice on Saturday to move on to one of the nation's eight Super Regionals.

Truman finishes with an overall record of 40-23 and UMSL adds another day to its season with a 2017 mark of 41-14. Against the Tritons, the Bulldogs' seven hits came from seven different players while Alyssa Rivera had an RBI thanks to her solo shot to left field in the seventh and Jamie Fowle tallied the other with an RBI single up the middle that same inning. That blast gives Rivera eight for her freshman year as well as RBI No. 48, the most for a Truman freshman in program history.

In the circle for the Purple and White, Alyssa Hajduk (5-7) lasted just a third of an inning and surrendered two earned runs with two walks and no strikeouts. Lauren Dale came in with one out in the bottom of the first, runners on first and second and gave up a three-run home run to left. For the game, Dale allowed two earned on seven hits with two free passes and two punchouts.

With the score still 3-0 in favor of UMSL in the top of the sixth, Truman had runners on first (Haley Wells) and second (Morgan McMahan) for the GLVC Player of the Year, Christa Reisinger. Reisinger hit a 3-2 pitch to the shortstop, raced down the line like always and beat the throw to the first baseman's glove. Despite appearing to be safe, the sophomore center fielder was retired for the third out and the margin stayed at three runs.

After the Tritons tacked on a run in the bottom of the sixth to go up 4-0, Rivera belted the first pitch she saw over the fence in left to lead off the top of the seventh. One out later, Lex Van Nostrand doubled and Fowle brought her in with a base knock to center. After Ashley Murphy popped out to the shortstop, McMahan grinded out a nine-pitch at-bat for a single to right center that put runners on first and second. However, it was too little, too late as the third out came when Riley Cook grounded out to the pitcher.

Looking ahead to 2018, Truman returns 14 of the 17 players from this roster and welcomes three newcomers, but says goodbye to quite the senior class. Lex Van Nostrand, Valerie Schmidt and Haley Wells combined to play 429 games with 343 starts and collected an overall record of 146-72 (.670 winning percentage) with a GLVC mark of 89-33 (.730). While Schmidt transferred in prior to the 2015 campaign, Van Nostrand and Wells have been involved in two of Truman's 40-win seasons (out of six) and four of its NCAA Tournament appearances (out of 16).

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