The MIAC's fourth-place team -- one that was unranked in all of the regular season and had no first-team All-Region players -- is going back to the College World Series for Division III softball.
Kendall Hopkins and Kierstin Anderson-Glass combined on a three-hit shutout and second-seed St. Thomas Softball moved its postseason record to 8-0 with Sunday's 3-0 defeat of top-seed St. Olaf that secured the NCAA Regional title in Waverly, Iowa.
The Toms will start play in the double-elimination tourney in Salem, Va., later this week.
Coach John Tschida will bring his eighth Tommie team to the eight-team national finals, including three in the last five World Series contested. Anderson-Glass has been the staff ace for each of those qualifiers in 2016, 2019 and now 2021, after missing the 2017 and 2018 seasons for medical reasons.
The No. 20-ranked Tommies (32-8) started Sunday with a thrilling last-inning comeback to eliminate Milwaukee School of Engineering, 4-3. The Purple scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh for the walk-off victory. The last of their six hits in the inning was Bridget Armstrong's game-winning single.
Over the last 11 days, St. Thomas went 4-0 in the conference playoffs and 4-0 in the regional tourney, and outscored those eight opponents by a combined 42-7 margin. They played MIAC regular-season champ St. Olaf seven times this season, including five meetings in the last 19 days.
Lauren Berridge retired one batter and took the game-one pitching win. Hopkins started the final game and worked 4 1-3 innings with just one hit allowed to earn the the win. Anderson-Glass allowed just one earned run in six innings of the opener; she got a save in the St. Olaf win as she recorded the last eight outs in game two.
Sam Birling went 2-for-2 with a walk and drove in the first run against St. Olaf. A pair of two-out, bases-loaded walks in the fourth inning pushed the lead to 3-0, and the Tommie defense made some sharp plays down the stretch to close out the championship.
Against Milwaukee, Coryn Jacobson went 3-for-4 to extend her hitting streak to 10 games. Her infield single started the last-inning comeback. Birling singled to center, and after a pop out, Anderson-Glass's RBI single to left made it 3-2. Sarah Hudson's single loaded the bases, and Mackenzie Rudy's single to right tied the score at 3-3. Amstrong, one of several first-year starters, slapped a single to right to win the game and eliminate a 35-win MSOE team.
St. Thomas batted .376 in the regional with 41 hits, nine walks and 20 runs. The Tommie pitchers worked 28 innings and allowed just three earned runs (0.75 ERA) while striking out 20 and walking just one.