Cowgirls fall to Washington, face elimination game tonight at 9 p.m.

SEATTLE, Wa.— McNeese softball suffered a 3-1 loss to #7 Washington and the Seattle Region No.1 seed in its first game on elimination Saturday. The Cowgirls will face the winner of Minnesota or Northern Colorado at 9 p.m. (CT) tonight in an elimination game on ESPN+.

The loss snapped the Cowgirls’ season best 11-game winning streak as they fell to 45-15 overall. With the win, Washington improves to 40-12 overall and into the regional championship game and one win away from advancing to the Super Regionals.

McNeese didn’t get many opportunities to score and when they did, they weren’t able to get the timely hit they needed to push runs across the plate. One reason was because of the Huskies ace pitcher Ruby Meylan who struck out nine Cowgirls and allowed three hits with one walk. With the win, Meylan improved to 17-5 on the year.

The Cowgirls avoided the shutout by scoring a run in the seventh inning when Emily Phillips led the inning off with a walk and went to third on ground outs by Mariana Torres and Rylie Bouvier. A wild pitch by Meylan allowed Phillips to score.

Erin Ardoin led McNeese at the plate picking up two of the three hits including a double in the sixth inning but was stranded there after the following three Cowgirls were able to bring her home.

Shaelyn Sanders took the loss for her first loss of the season, falling to 7-1 on the year. Sanders allowed three runs on three hits in 3.1 innings before handing the ball over to Whitney Tate who tossed the final 3 2/3 innings and allowed one hit.

Washington took the early lead in the second inning off a solo homerun by Jadelyn Allchin, her sixth of the season. Allchin picked up three of the four Husky hits. Washington added two more runs in the fourth inning on a RBI single to right by Allchin and a ground out by SilentRain Espinoza.