Missouri-St Louis softball

Missouri-St Louis softball

The 11th ranked Missouri-St. Louis softball team successfully defended its Great Lakes Valley Conference title on Sunday by defeating Bellarmine, 3-0, in the 2014 championship game.

Two-time GLVC Pitcher of the Year Hannah Perryman tossed her second no-hitter of the season and the third of her career, leading the No. 2 seeded Tritons to the victory over the No. 4 seeded Knights, while also recording 12 strikeouts. She improved to 25-5 in the circle, tying an UMSL single season record.

UMSL recorded a program-best 45th victory with the win, improving to 45-6 overall. The Tritons went 4-0 in the GLVC Tournament with wins over Illinois Springfield (1-0), #22 Truman State (5-0) and Bellarmine twice (3-2, 3-0) and has now won seven straight.

With the win, UMSL also receives the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Regional Tournament.

The championship is the third in the program. In addition to last year’s title, the 1989 team won the 1989 MIAA Championship. It is also just the third GLVC championship for UMSL in any sport, with the 2003 baseball team winning the GLVC crown.

Missouri Western softball

Missouri Western softball

Missouri Western scored seven runs in the 7th inning on their way to a 12-0 victory over the Northeastern State RiverHawks in the MIAA Tournament Championship. The victory was Jackie Bishop’s 25th of the season which ties her career high for victories in a season. The Griffons are 38-16 on the season and will play next weekend in the NCAA Central Regional. Bishop threw a one hitter while striking out 10 and walking just one.

The Griffons had 12 hits in the game with two coming from Kat Steponovich, Michelle Stevenson and Morgan Rathmann.

Missouri Western is the fifth seed in the Central Region and the Griffons (38-16) will take on fourth seed Augustana SD (43-13) on Friday at 4:30 p.m.

In the Midwest Regional, Truman State (40-11)  received an at-large bid as the fourth seed and will play Ohio Dominican (29-26) on Friday at 1 p.m.  In the same bracket, it will be a rematch of the GLVC championship game between top seed Missouri-St. Louis (43-5) against 8th seeded Bellarmine (37-15), Friday at 2:30 p.m.

NCAA BracketsÂ