Alma advanced to the championship game in its NCAA Division III softball regional, while MIAA champion Trine stayed alive in its regional on Saturday.
The news was not as good for Hope, as the Flying Dutch saw their hopes for a regional title slip away as they lost twice in the championship round to host Lake Forest, Ill.
Alma pulled out a pair of one-run victories in the regional at Illinois Wesleyan, edging the host Titans 1-0, in eight innings, and Simpson, Iowa, 2-1. Trine blasted four home runs in an 8-3 win over Washington-St. Louis, Mo. in an elimination game in the regional at DePauw, Ind. The Thunder were leading Thomas More, Ky., 4-0, at the end of four innings when the game was suspended because of darkness. That game will resume at 10 a.m. Sunday.
Hope, meanwhile, lost to Lake Forest 4-1 and 2-0 as the Foresters walked off with the regional championship and advanced to next weekend's super regional.
Alma (27-15) got strong pitching from sophomore Morgan Stratton in its two victories, as she fired a two-hitter with eight strikeouts against Illinois Wesleyan, and followed with a three-hitter and eight more punchouts in the circle against Simpson.
The Scots pulled out the win over IWU in the eighth when Marie Zill singled, took second on a sacrifice, and scored the game-winning on Devin Olah's two-out single. Then against Simpson, Alma won in walkoff fashion as Anna Couture's two-out single in the seventh scored Zill from second with the winning run.
Trine (38-4) used the long ball to end WashU's season, belting four home runs in a contest that was delayed more than an hour at one point by rain. Kaitlyn Clark belted a two-run homer in the first inning to get it started, and before the game was over, Kendra Marshall, Kaylee Fox and Amy Newell had all gone deep for the Thunder.
Bree Fuller scattered nine hits in the circle for Trine to raise her record to 16-1 on the season. Fuller then worked four shutout innings against Thomas More, which had rallied Friday to beat Trine to send the Thunder into the loser's bracket. Leah Hall belted a three-run double to get the offense started.
Hope (27-11) entered the day needing only one win over Lake Forest to win the regional. But the host Foresters got stellar pitching performances in both games, limiting the high-powered Flying Dutch offense to just one run in the two games.
Lake Forest took advantage of a two-out error to score three unearned runs in the seventh to win game one, then capitalized on another miscue in the sixth inning of game two that led to both runs. All six of Lake Forest's runs in the two games were unearned.
Sammi Adams, Autumn Anderson, Sydney Jones and Peyton Wells were Hope's representatives on the all-tournament team.
