May 6, 2023 – A long day of softball turned out to be well worth the wait for Loras College softball and its fans as the Duhawks earned a dramatic split with the 17^th-ranked Central College Dutch to end the regular season on a high note alongside senior day festivities.

The Duhawks (21-14, 9-7 A-R-C) were already locked into the postseason entering Saturday, but they proved they could compete with some of the league's top teams as it took the Dutch (30-8, 11-5 A-R-C) nine inning to take game one by a 7-5 score ahead of a dramatic 8-7 win for Loras in game two.

Central 7, Loras 5 (F/9)
Things were looking great for the Duhawks early in game one as a sophomore starter Ashlyn Hemm worked out of a first inning jam with the help of a strike-'em-out, throw-'em-out double play to end the inning as sophomore catcher Clare Murphy gunned down a runner at third base. That momentum carried into the bottom half as a pair of singles set the table for senior Grace Houghton, who demolished her eighth home run of the year into deep left field to put Loras ahead 3-0 right out of the gates.

Central tallied a pair of runs in the third inning before knotting the score at 3-3 in the fifth inning. The score stayed knotted until the bottom of the sixth when a string of three-straight two-out hits was bookended by a booming two-RBI double for freshman Ava Franklin that put the Duhawks up by two heading to the seventh.

A wild top of the seventh for Central led to a bases-loaded situation for Megan Doty, and she just managed to get enough of an 0-2 pitch from Hemm to punch it into centerfield and bring home the tying run, sending this one into extra innings. After a couple uneventful half-innings, the Dutch scored the go-ahead runs on an RBI double for Madison Farrington to make it 7-5 in the ninth.

Loras sent the tying run to the plate in the bottom half, but the rally fell just short.

Loras 8, Central 7
Franklin kept her bat hot in game two as she started the scoring in the second inning on yet another two-RBI double that plated the first two of three runs in the inning. The lead turned out to be short-lived as the Dutch plated three runs on their own in the top of the third before taking a 5-3 lead with two more in the top of the fourth.

As per the theme of this game, the Duhawks responded right back in the bottom of the fourth with another three-spot to take the lead once again. RBIs for senior Abby Jones and Houghton evened the score at 5-5 ahead of an RBI single up the middle for sophomore Emily Monahan that brought home senior pinch-runner Jadyn Anderson.

After a pair of shutdown innings for freshman relief pitcher Rachel Peat, it looked like that Loras lead would hold, but a two-out, two-run homer from Central's Megan Stuhr stunned the Duhawk crowd and flipped it to a 7-6 Dutch lead.

Even with that momentum shift, the Duhawks weren't to be denied as sophomore Olivia Martinelli led off the bottom half with a single before a walk for Jones put two runners on. With two outs, Hughes ripped a double into the left centerfield gap, and the Dutch relay was just a tick late as Jones dove in ahead of the tag for the Loras walk-off winner.

The Duhawks will be the No. 5 seed in the upcoming American Rivers Conference(A-R-C) Tournament and will play No. 4 seed Wartburg College at 2 P.M. on Friday, May 12. Coe College will host the single-elimination tournament in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.