It hasn't been an easy road for the Hillsdale College softball team in the 2023 G-MAC Tournament, with three straight close contests on Anderson Field and Findlay, Ohio.
But throughout, the Chargers have refused to be denied, and now, after a 4-0 victory over the host Findlay Oilers on Friday, they'll play on Saturday for their first G-MAC Tournament crown since 2019.
For the third straight game in their G-MAC Tourney run, Hillsdale got a dominant pitching performance, as ace and G-MAC Pitcher of the Year Joni Russell pitched a complete-game three-hit shutout for her 18th win of the season.
Up against the best hitting team in the G-MAC in 2023, Russell put on a clinic in the circle, striking out eight batters, issuing no free bases and allowing a Findlay runner to reach second base just one time in the contest.
While Hillsdale defanged the Findlay offensive threat throughout Friday's contest, the Chargers also struggled to put up runs against a determined and impressive pitching effort from Findlay's Emma Jones.
Jones pitched five scoreless innings to keep the game tied, working out of a big jam in the second inning after the Chargers loaded the bases with one out on singles by Jenna Cantalupo and Taylor Lewis.
But Hillsdale kept putting the pressure on, and in the sixth inning, the dam finally burst. Junior Grace Wallner led off with a double to the left-center fence, Hillsdale's first extra-base hit of the game, and in the very next at-bat, Cantalupo, the Chargers' lone senior on the roster, blasted a ball 210 feet over the left field fence to break the deadlock and give the Chargers a 2-0 lead.
Hillsdale kept the pressure on as it tried to tack on insurance runs, loading the bases again and scoring two more on a RBI single by freshman Emma Sather and a fielding error in the outfield on the same play.
Now protecting a four-run lead, Russell slammed the door shut on the Oilers in the top of the seventh, striking out a batter and inducing two groundouts to secure the victory.
With the win, Hillsdale improves to 34-18 overall, the third-best win total in Chargers softball history and the best mark since a 40-win season in 1991. Hillsdale will play on Saturday at 10 a.m. against the winner of an elimination contest between the Oilers and eighth-seeded Tiffin for the G-MAC Tournament crown and an automatic bid to the 2023 NCAA Tournament next week. As the lone remaining undefeated team in the G-MAC Tourney, Hillsdale only has to win once on Saturday to claim the title, while their opponent will have to beat the Chargers twice to take the crown.
It's Hillsdale's first trip to the G-MAC title game since the second of back-to-back G-MAC Tournament crowns in 2019. In both that title run in 2019 and the one the year before in 2018, Hillsdale came through the winner's bracket, ultimately going undefeated to the title with four straight victories. The Chargers will hope for a similar finish in 2023.
Photo by Bailee Worley