COLUMBUS — The Mississippi University for Women’s baseball team clinched the No. 2 seed in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference with a 7-4 win against Westminster College on Sunday.
The win grants The W a first-round bye in the upcoming conference tournament.
The Owls, 19-15 overall, boast an impressive 14-4 record in SLIAC after splitting the regular season finale doubleheader at Columbus Christian Academy on Sunday. It included five sweeps of conference opponents without being swept themselves, and doubleheader splits with conference powers helped the team realize its potential.
“Avoiding sweeps by two really good teams in Webster and Spalding, that immediately gave us confidence,” said two-way senior Landon Clark. “We proved that we can win against these teams, and us locking in and getting the No. 2 seed was a big change. Last year we fell off near the end, this year we haven’t let ourselves do that. If we can keep this confidence going, we’ll be just fine.”
The W went up 3-0 in Game 1 on Sunday thanks to Zach Johnson rocketing his eighth home run of the season beyond the outfield wall in the third inning. Westminster responded with three runs in the fifth, but a four-run sixth inning from the Owls put the game out of reach.
Johnson’s three-run shot led the team in RBI, with Griffin Fuller adding a pair and Zack Egan and Swayze Rikard each driving in one apiece.
Eight different batters registered hits for the Owls in Game 1 before the starters rested in an 11-6 Game 2 loss. It wasn’t always that way this season, and the team managed more than two runs just once in its first five games, starting the year 0-5. Since then, the team has come together, building momentum and confidence.
“It’s a very confident team right now,” head coach Scott Mularz said. “For the past six weeks, they’ve really bought into how we want stuff done, and they’ve played hard. They’ve seen how good they can be, beating Webster, Spalding, Millsaps, they know they can beat anybody when it’s time to play.”
Mularz arrived at The W three years ago as the school was gearing up for Division III athletics by scheduling bigger and better opponents. It was a difficult adjustment period, but it prepared the team for joining the SLIAC ranks.
This year, MUW’s second in the conference, finds the Owls as the No. 2 seed with a first-round bye in the upcoming tournament secured. Mularz praised his team’s turnaround, crediting the hard work of the players who came in and committed to the task. On their watch, the team posted one of the biggest turnarounds in Division III after going 6-25-1 in 2023 but improving to 22-15 in their first season in SLIAC. It took some work, but that same group is leading the team into the postseason this week.
“In my second year here, we brought in a big class of 24 guys,” Mularz said. “We threw a hard schedule at them to prepare for where we are now. Those guys now are juniors and seniors, and they’re prepared for whatever we face.”
The Owls await the results of the SLIAC play-in round to discover their opponents for the conference tournament. They’ll play their first game on Thursday in the double-elimination final-four round in O’Fallon, Mo.
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