LAFAYETTE, La. — It took a long time, but the Louisiana-Lafayette softball team came away the big winner when the NCAA tournament Lafayette Regional came to a close Sunday night.
With four games at Lamson Park, top-seeded ULL closed the regional with a 9-1 win against second-seeded Baylor in six innings to claim the regional title late Sunday night.
Louisiana-Lafayette (42-10) will travel to Auburn (52-9) for a super regional this weekend.
Samantha Walsh ended the game with a walk-off three-run home run in the home half of the sixth. Walsh had two hits and three RBIs, while Lexie Elkins had two hits and two RBIs in the win. Former New Hope High School standout DJ Sanders started at shortstop and drew two walks in the game.
Baylor forced the winner-take-all game by beating ULL 6-2 earlier Sunday. That loss was only ULL’s second home loss of the season. Prior to that, Baylor eliminated Mississippi State 2-0 after MSU eliminated Weber State 2-0.
SEC dominance
With the super regional field set, the proceedings will have a heavy Southeastern Conference flavor.
SEC schools took eight of the 16 spots in the super regional. All seven SEC schools that served as hosts in the opening round moved on. Kentucky pulled a mild upset by defeating No. 16 national seed Notre Dame to win the South Bend Regional.
Kentucky won five conference games during the regular season, but it won all three games played in its regional. Georgia lost to Western Kentucky but bounced back to score 29 runs in two wins against WKU to advance. LSU also dropped a tournament game to Arizona State, but it beat the Sun Devils twice in the championship round to advance.
South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State were each chosen to play regionals on the road and didn’t advance.
Notre Dame and No. 15 James Madison were the only host squads not to qualify for a super regional.
Follow Dispatch sports writer Scott Walters on Twitter @dispatchscott
Scott was sports editor for The Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.