With the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh, redshirt junior pitcher Chelsea Thomas knew she needed to slam the door on Illinois State’s (37-23) rally.
On a 1-2 count, Thomas (26-7) blew a pitch past the swinging bat of ISU’s leftfielder Lauren Kellar to give the No. 9 Missouri Tigers (46-12) a 2-1 victory in Sunday’s Columbia regional finale and a regional crown for the fifth straight year.
“It came down to her getting the ball and saying ‘I’m going to get the last out here,’” coach Ehren Earleywine said. “And she did. She blew the kid away.”
The Tigers defeated Illinois State for the second time this weekend. Missouri topped the Redbirds 6-0 on Friday and defeated DePaul 1-0 in nine innings Saturday to set up Sunday’s title game.
Thomas carried a perfect game into the bottom of the fifth before giving up a leadoff single and hitting the next batter in the helmet with a pitch. A sacrifice bunt followed by an intentional walk loaded the bases, but Thomas tossed an off-speed pitch to get the seventh of her 12 strikeouts and end the Redbirds’ opportunity.
Missouri struck first when a bloop fly ball from freshman second baseman Ashtin Stephens sent shortstop Corrin Genovese home from second base. Stephens was tagged out when she overslid second base on the hit, but the damage was done, the Tigers taking a 1-0 lead.
In the sixth, junior Lindsey Muller roped her seventh home run of the season, a solo shot that curled around the left field foul pole and gave Missouri a 2-0 advantage. Left fielder Kayla Kingsley followed with a double to the wall in right center field, the freshman’s sixth hit of the weekend.
“My ball was definitely low, and I was struggling to get on time with (ISU starting pitcher Jordan Birch’s) high pitches, so my focus that last at bat was to try and look for something low,” Muller said.
In ISU’s half of the sixth, third baseman Elizabeth Kay knocked in Jhavon Hamilton, putting her team on board and snapping Thomas’s scoreless inning streak at 41.1.
One inning later, the Redbirds were down to their last out after Thomas struck out two batters and gave up an infield single. Missouri appeared to have won the game on a routine ground ball out, but the umpire called catcher interference on junior Jenna Marston and awarded the batter first base. A rare error from Genovese, the Big 12 Conference’s Defensive Player of the Year, loaded the bases, giving Illinois State its best scoring opportunity of the day.
Then Thomas rung up Kellar to end the game.
“I guess I shifted into another gear,” Thomas said. “I just know we need the outs, and I want to get outs for my team because they work so hard behind me. In that last inning, (Genovese) rarely makes an error, so I wasn’t going to let her get punished for her one error in her 75 million good plays.”
With the win, the Tigers advance to the NCAA Super Regionals for a fifth straight year. Missouri will host another set of Tigers – and new Southeastern Conference opponents – LSU next weekend in Columbia after the No. 8 Texas A&M Aggies were eliminated in their own College Station regional in Texas.
“I don’t know much about LSU at all,” Earleywine said. “By Wednesday I’ll know more about them than they know themselves. Congratulations to them to going to College Station, a tough place to play, and taking care of business.”
Earleywine also said that, despite winning five regionals in a row, advancing this far is not something that’s become a simple routine for the team.
“I never take these things for granted,” he said. “You look around the country and see all the things that happened this weekend, and that’ll remind you in a hurry to be thankful.”
LSU’s upset of higher-seeded A&M means Missouri won’t get an opportunity to avenge a pair of losses suffered at the hands of the Aggies in late March.
“I’m just happy that we’re going to the super regionals,” Earleywine said.
