Eugene, Oregon – The UBC Thunderbirds (25-20, 16-11) officially concluded the Cascade Collegiate Conference regular season by dropping a 6-1 decision to the College of Idaho Yotes (33-15, 21-7) Sunday afternoon. The makeup game was the result of a postponed contest due to weather at UBC in March and was needed to be completed before season's end as there was playoff seeding on the line for the Yotes. With the win, the College of Idaho secured third spot in the final standings ahead of Southern Oregon University who settles for fourth place.
The game was kindly hosted by Bushnell University in Eugene Oregon and the T-Birds made the trek there for the one game decider after finishing a decisive three-game weekend sweep on the road vs the Corban University Warriors on Saturday.
The bats were quiet for both teams on Sunday morning until the top of the fifth inning when the Yotes got on the board first thanks to a run scoring double from Lolo Walker and a run scoring single from Lena Zahniser, giving Idaho a 2-0 advantage. The T-Birds would respond in the bottom of the sixth with their lone run of the game courtesy of
Shae Sever's single through the left side of the infield which scored
Madison MacGillivray to cut the lead in half at 2-1.
The Yotes would answer in the top of the seventh by counting four more runs to put it out of reach, Zahniser picked up her second RBI of the day while a Lexi Navarette triple brought home two runs.
Annie Polster (16-7) earned the victory for the College of Idaho going 5.1 innings allowing six hits, one earned run while striking out one. Meanwhile the 'Birds went with pitching by committee on the final day of the season, starting with
Shae Sever 2.1 innings,
Lindsay Bell, who was tapped with the loss after 1.2 innings. Riley Howard and
Carleen Murray also saw action for UBC.
The T-Birds and Yotes will now turn their attention to the upcoming playoffs with the Cascade Collegiate Conference Championship tournament beginning next Friday May 4
th hosted by Oregon Tech. UBC enters as the fifth seed and will meet the fourth seed Southern Oregon University while the number three seed College of Idaho will open against the number six ranked Carroll College in game two on Friday morning, with first pitch scheduled for 11:30 a.m.