PORTLAND, Ore. (May 4) –  The Central Washington University softball team (33-18, 21-8) took on Concordia University (31-21, 19-10) for the second game of the day for the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament championship game. Central dropped a heart breaker as they came up just one run short to Concordia.
 
The Wildcats plated an early run against the Cavaliers in the first inning. Savannah Egbert opened the contest be reaching on error by the pitcher Mckenzie Smith. The played allowed Egbert to move to second base. Later in the inning, Maddy Zerr bashed a ball up the middle for a base hit. Egbert motored home to score for the Wildcats. After one inning, they led 1-0. 
 
Lexie Strasser was in the circle for the Wildcats. She found herself in some early trouble in the second inning. After a quick out, the Cavaliers answered with a walk and double to put runners on second and third with one out. Courtney Somers to popped out to Strasser for the second out of the inning. After another walk, the bases were loaded for Linda Gherir. Gherir popped out in four territory to end the inning, and the Cavalier threat. 
 
Central added to their lead in the top of the third inning when Katie Kastning took a 1-1 pitch deep to right field and snuck it just inside the foul pole for her third homerun on the year. Strasser came out for the bottom half of the inning and stranded two runners in the inning keeping the Cavaliers scoreless.
 
The Wildcats looked to strike again in the top of the fifth inning when Egbert got a one out single and then stole second on the very next pitch. She made it up to third after Kastning grounded out to the second baseman but could not be brought in. The Cavaliers then brought in five runs in the bottom half of the inning to take a 5-2 lead. 
 
 The five runs in the innings marked the end of Strasser's scoreless inning streak which reach 18.2 innings in her last two and a half starts. The Wildcats went into the top of the seventh inning trailing by three runs.
 
Bethany Balucan drew a four pitch walk to lead off the inning which then induced a pitching change for the Cavaliers. Keegan Wise then pinch hit for Sydney Brown. Wise then drew a four pitch walk of her own. Egbert came up with two on and one out and was able to double to right field to bring in Balucan and put herself in scoring position. 
 
Kastning then came up and hit a sacrifice fly to right field which brought Wise in to score. Central wasn't able to bring Egbert in from third base which would have been the tying run and ended up dropping the game.

"I cant be any more proud of the way that we battled today," CWU Head Coach Mike Larabee said. "Came in and took the first game to force a second and played really well for the most part. Just a few mistakes hurt us and they capitalized on it. You have to give credit to Concordia and their pitcher. She did a great job keeping the ball out of the middle part of the plate and that's what good pitchers do. I thought Lexie was amazing all day. She pitched really well in both games and was a main piece of our success from today." The championship marked the first for Concordia in their program history. 

Monday morning marks the selection day for the NCAA Division II West Regional playoff. "Really looking forward to the draw on Monday morning," Coach Larabee said. "I think we have a really good chance at getting selected. Its one of those things were all eight of the teams are really good and can go out and win it all and so its going to be exciting, fun softball. We aren't done yet and I'm looking forward to playing some more softball."