Box Score GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.— The Colorado Mesa University softball team received several pre-game awards but could not match that excitement during the game as the Regis University Rangers stunned the Mavericks, 8-0 in Game 3 of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament, ending the Mavs' 33-game winning streak, the second longest in program history.
The Mavs' loss also spoiled what had been a 20-0 home field record this season.
Ranger pitcher Vanessa Candito held the nation's leading-scoring Mavericks to just one hit while the Rangers recorded 12 hits, all singles, to claim their second win of the day while improving to 30-20 overall and advancing to the winner's bracket final on Friday at 3 p.m. against the winner of Thursday evening's Game 4 encounter between second-seeded Colorado Christian and third seeded MSU Denver.
The No. 5 seed Rangers had also upset No. 4 seed Colorado School of Mines by a 4-2 count in the opening game of the tournament on Thursday morning.
The Mavs, who fell to 43-8, while being shutout for just the second time during the entire campaign and for the first time by an RMAC opponent, will now fall into the elimination half of the bracket and will need to win five consecutive games to win the double-elimination tournament. They will begin that stretch in Game 5 on Friday morning at 10 a.m. against sixth-seeded CSU Pueblo, which was also stunned by MSU Denver in Game 2 on Thursday.
The ThunderWolves took a 5-2 lead in the top of the eighth inning but gave up four runs to the Roadrunners in the bottom half of the extra frame.
CMU, the RMAC's regular season champions and the tournament's top seed, received their championship trophy while
Myah Arrieta,
Preslee Christensen,
Ally Distler and Coach
Mercedes Bohte all received plaques after being named as the RMAC Player of the Year, Pitcher of the Year, Summit Award Winner and Coach of the Year, respectively, earlier in the week.
However, that buzz did not continue as the game would be scoreless for two innings before the Rangers recorded five consecutive and six overall hits in a 4-run inning that forced Bohte to go to relief pitcher
Hannah Sattler mid-inning.
The Rangers then added another run in the top of the fourth before
Miranda Pruitt recorded the Mavs' lone hit with two outs in the bottom of the fourth.
The Rangers then went on to add three runs in the seventh as Candito completed her masterpiece with her seventh strikeout.
The Mavs were also able to draw two walks and two hit by pitches but left four runners on base, while never having one get to third.
Arrieta drew one of those walks and extended her reached safely streak to 49 games but did see her 27-game hitting streak snapped by the Rangers, who had also stopped CMU's school-record setting 37-game winning streak in 2018. Distler has also reached safely in 49 games after drawing a hit by pitch right before Pruitt's single in the fourth inning.
Friday's match-up against the ThunderWolves (22-34) will be the fifth in eight days after the Mavericks capped the regular season and a regular season title by sweeping the ThunderWolves last Friday and Saturday.
