(Story Courtesy of Texas Lutheran Sports Information Department)
MARSHALL, Texas -- No. 9 Texas Lutheran softball's season came to an end Saturday afternoon at the NCAA Division-III Marshall Regional, falling to No. 2 East Texas Baptist, 5-3, in the regional championship.
The two teams traded runs throughout before Texas Lutheran (33-5) fell behind for good after the Tigers (41-2) scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth.
Texas Lutheran struck first in the first inning as Serena Gonzalez brought in Annie Kay to get the scoring started. A leadoff home run from the Tigers immediately tied the game up in the bottom of the inning.
A Linzee Leal RBI single brought in Reagan Hillis in the second inning as the Bulldogs regained the lead, 2-1.
East Texas Baptist responded with runs in the third and fourth to take a 3-2 lead.
Texas Lutheran would respond yet again in the fifth inning with a one out solo home run from Kylee Jack, her seventh of the season. Jack concludes the 2024 season with seven homers (sixth most in program history), 39 RBIs (tenth most in program history), and a program record .773 slugging percentage on the season, passing the previous record of .770 set by Becca Snow in 2021.
The Bulldogs would lie dormant for the remainder of the game as the two Tiger runs in the bottom of the fifth proved to be enough to win the back and forth top 25 matchup.
Senior Sydney Ouellette got the start in the circle for the Bulldogs and would go 4.2 innings - allowing five runs on six hits and three walks. Senior Ashlyn Strother relieved her in the fifth and would toss the final 1.1 innings.
Ouellette, Jack, and Leal were named to the All-Tournament Team following the game. Ouellette has the unique distinction of making the All-Tournament Team in every NCAA Regional she has ever played in, making it every season from 2021-24.
This season marked the tenth consecutive trip to the NCAA Division-III Softball Tournament in program history and ninth straight Regional Championship appearance, a year that also saw Texas Lutheran claim its tenth straight Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) regular season championship and win its ninth SCAC Championship Tournament in ten seasons. As a team, the 2024 TLU softball team once again set a new NCAA Division-III record for stolen bases with 233 on the season, surpassing their previous record of 231 set in 2022.
Individually, Caelee Clark set a new NCAA single-season stolen base record for Division-III with 87 stolen bases, which ranks third all-time across all levels, with her 2.29 stolen bases per game ranking second all-time in NCAA Division-III history. Clark also set a new program record with 1.66 hits per game across the 2024 season while also setting the program's new single-game stolen base record with seven and tying the program record with five hits in a single game. In addition to setting the single-season slugging record, Kylee Jack set a new single-game record for total bases (10) while matching program records for home runs (2) and walks (4) in a single-game. Ashlyn Strother set the program record for career strikeouts, finishing her career with 599, while also becoming TLU's career leader in perfect games (2).
The Bulldogs - a team picked to finish first in the SCAC preseason poll - conclude the 2024 season with a 33-5 record, going 19-2 in the SCAC to claim their tenth straight SCAC regular season championship and winning their ninth SCAC Championship Tournament. The Bulldogs will graduate three seniors - seven seniors: Madison Johnson, Skylar Shanahan, Reagan Hillis, Ashlyn Strother, Tatum Seith, Reagan Jones, and Jayna Reid. Collectively, they are four-time SCAC regular season champions and three-time SCAC tournament champions as well as 2021 NCAA Tournament National runner-ups and 2022 NCAA Tournament Semifinalists. Over the course of their careers, they compiled a record of 173-26 in their time as Bulldogs. The group contributed to a 2022 season that saw the Bulldogs set program records in wins with 45 and a then-NCAA record 231 stolen bases in 2022 as well as 2024's 233 stolen bases. We thank them for all of their contributions to the Texas Lutheran softball program.
