Next up, Nationals: Co-Lin dominates Jones in winning Region 23 title
Published 9:00 am Wednesday, May 17, 2023
- PHOTO BY CO-LIN SPORTS INFO The Copiah-Lincoln softball team won first place in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament Monday.
Jones College touts Ellisville as Winnersville on social media.
The Copiah-Lincoln softball team left Winnersville with championship hardware for a second straight season on Monday.
A year after winning the MACCC state tournament in Ellisville, Co-Lin beat Jones twice on Monday in the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament to capture first place in that tournament. It’s the first Region 23 title for CLCC since 2008.
Both Co-Lin and Jones College will play later this month in Spartanburg, South Carolina in the NJCAA DII National Championship.
Co-Lin is now 43-9 on the season, a school record for wins.
Jones has a record that sits at 46-8. Half of those losses are to Co-Lin as the Wolves swept JC in the regular season and then won two more on Monday.
On Sunday, Jones had put Co-Lin into the loser’s bracket with a 10-2 win.
Co-Lin bounced back from that setback to beat Pearl River in their second game on Sunday, which set up the Monday matchup with Jones.
Beating PRCC put Co-Lin into the national tournament and Co-Lin softball coach Meleah Howard felt like her team had zero pressure on them as they needed to beat Jones twice, while the Bobcats needed just one win to clinch the title.
“We had our backs against the wall when we played Pearl River on Sunday and we found a way to come out of that game with a win and punch our ticket to the national tournament,” said Howard in a release by the school. “When we rolled into the championship on Monday, we were playing so free and back to doing what we do as Co-Lin Softball and that was evident with the results.”
CLCC won game one 9-5 after a seven-run sixth inning shot them into the lead.
Sophomore pitcher Belle West (Hillcrest Christian) got the win in relief by pitching the final 2.1 innings and giving up just two hits to Jones.
Game two was all Wolf Pack. Co-Lin hit seven home runs in seven innings of an eventual 9-2 victory.
West pitched the second game and gave up two hits in a complete game victory.
The national tournament runs from May 23-27 and is a 16-team, double elimination event.