OXFORD, Ala. – Top-seeded Southeast Missouri (30-17) ended its season with a close 5-4 loss to second-seeded Eastern Kentucky (35-15) Saturday in the Ohio Valley Conference Championship at Choccolocco Park.
EKU won its first OVC Tournament title since 2004 in a game that featured six home runs, including four by SEMO.
Carly Robinson's two-run home run gave the Colonels a 5-4 advantage in the bottom of the fifth inning and held up in the end.
SEMO matched its season-high of home runs and hit three in a row in the top of the fourth inning to take its only lead of the game.
Ashley Ellis,
Alyson Tucker and
Austine Pauley each hit solo home runs to put the Redhawks up, 4-3.
The Colonels loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the first inning when Zoe Mihalicz and Vianna Barron singled and Robinson walked. Isabella Gonzalez walked on the next play and Mihalicz scored the first run of the game.
With one out in the top of the second, Ellis quickly tied the game with a solo home run to left field. That home run broke her own all-time SEMO single-season record of 17 round-trippers which came during the 2019 campaign. She finished with 19 home runs in 2021 and 53 in her outstanding career as a Redhawk. The multi-home run game was also Ellis' ninth all-time.
In addition, Ellis did not have a hit in this year's OVC Tournament until her pair of home runs today.
Samantha Reynoso (6-2), this year's OVC Tournament Most Valuable Player, struck out four in 3.2 scoreless innings. Reynoso escaped a bases loaded jam in the top of the seventh inning when she fielded a grounder and threw out
Kimmy Wallen for the final out.
Rachel Rook (20-9) took the loss. Rook worked 4.1 innings allowing five runs and five hits. She also struck out five and walked four. Rook's 196 strikeouts fell just four shy of tying SEMO's all-time single-season record of 200 by Tracie Eudaley (1986).
SEMO outhit EKU, 9-5.
Rachel Anderson, Ellis and Pauley paved the way with two hits each. Ellis, Anderson and
Kaylee Anderson represented the Redhawks on this year's OVC All-Tournament Team.
The Redhawks hit three consecutive home runs in an inning against EKU at the OVC Tournament for the second time.
Claudia Gallo, Ellis and R. Anderson accomplished the feat in the second inning of an 11-8 victory over the Colonels on May 10, 2019.
This year marked SEMO's 10th all-time OVC Tournament Championship appearance and the first time the Redhawks advanced to the OVC Tournament final in consecutive years since 1998 and 1999.
