COLUMBUS, Ga. – Oregon Tech staved off elimination at the NAIA Softball World Series for a second-straight day, rallying from a fifth inning deficit to dispatch Marian University and riding a 4-hit shutout from Kacie Schmidt to top University of the Cumberlands – advancing to the national championship game tomorrow vs. rival Southern Oregon.
 
Puakea Milbourne delivered a go-ahead 2-run double in the fifth inning of the opener, as the Lady Owls (54-9) topped Marian, 8-5, while Schmidt held the prolific Cumberlands offense in check in a 3-0 victory.
 
OIT will meet Southern for the seventh time on Wednesday, with first-pitch set for 2:03 p.m. (PDT) – live on 104.3/960 Sports in the Basin and broadcast live on ESPN3. The Owls will have to defeat the Raiders twice to secure their first NAIA title since 2011. A Watch party will be held today in the College Union Mt. Bailey/Thielsen room, all fans are invited. 
 
"It shows the moxie of this team and shows their character," said OIT head coach Greg Stewart. "The coaches, the administrators, the fans, the families all know the toughness and the grit that this team has and we showed it to the rest of the country playing three really good teams over the last two days."
 
Things looked good early in Game 1, as the Lady Owls strung together five third inning hits to take a 3-0 lead. Milbourne and Addison Kachnik started the rally with singles, with Nita Cook plating pinch-runners Maddie DeVerna and Olivia Sprague with her second 2-run double of the tournament. Pinch-hitter Jensen Becker added an RBI single to extend the lead.
 
The Knights (52-9) from Indianapolis answered in the bottom of the inning in a big way. Abby Madere doubled home a run and scored on a game-tying 2-run homer from Sierra Norman. Savannah Baker gave Marian the lead with a double – chasing Schmidt from the circle after two-plus innings.
 
Enter Mckenzie Staub, who handcuffed the Knights the rest of the way, tossing four and two-thirds innings of shutout relief, allowing just three hits, earning win No. 24.
 
Trailing 5-3 in the fifth, Tech put two runners aboard with no outs, before Lexi Klum dropped down a sacrifice bunt that MU third baseman Haley Greene threw wildly to first, allowing a run to score. An out later, Milbourne doubled off the center field wall to plate a pair, scoring on a wild pitch, as the Owls grabbed a 7-5 lead.
 
OIT would add an insurance run in the sixth on a Maggie Buckholz RBI single – with Staub working out of a first-and-second, one-out jam in the seventh.
 
Milbourne finished 2-for-3 and Buckholz was 2-for-4 in the win, with Madere going 3-for-4 in the loss for the No. 9-ranked Knights.
 
"Our key was focusing on the first game first and knowing what our approach was," Stewart said. "We don't see enough of these teams to have a great scouting report to know their tendencies. Jayce Seavert has been outstanding calling games in this tournament – she has a great memory, knows what our approach is and knows how to handle both Mckenzie and Kacie."
 
Facing the No. 1 defense and No. 2 offense in the NAIA under the lights, Tech capitalized on an early Patriots (49-5) mistake to take a lead they would not surrender.
 
Zoe Allen led off with a routine pop up to short that turned into a 2-base error when Maddie Sickau dropped the ball. Allen would move to third on a wild pitch and score on a Buckholz sacrifice fly. Klum would come through again, lining an RBI single to score Kaila Mick, who had walked, to make it 2-0.
 
Schmidt traversed the UC line-up with the help of her defense. The Pats stranded runners at first-and-second in the first and third innings, left a runner at third in the fourth and had a scoring chance turned away in the fifth on a running catch at the wall by Allen in left.
 
Tech would extend the lead to 3-0 in the fifth, as Mick singled, stole second and scored on a Seavert single. Schmidt would close the game by retiring seven of the final eight batters to punch Tech's ticket to the title game.
 
"We are at where we are at because of the way we hit the ball today, the way we played defense and especially how we pitched it," Stewart said. "It's given us an opportunity to win it all."
 
Both Seavert and Klum finished 2-for-3 for the Owls, while Mick was 1-for-2 with two runs scored.
 
NOTES:

• Tech avenged a pair of losses to Marian from the 2017 season – as the Knights eliminated OIT from the Opening Round bracket held in Costa Mesa, Calif.
• The 3-0 win over Cumberlands marked the first shutout loss of the season for the Patriots
• Schmidt won her school-record 28th-straight decision and tied 2-time All-American Sarah Abramson for the single-season wins mark with 29 victories.
• The two runs scored by Mick against Cumberlands pushed her season total to 69 – a new OIT single-season record
• The Lady Owls stole six bases on the day, pushing their single-season school record total to 125 (previous mark was 88)
• The victory over Cumberlands marked win No. 699 in the 19-year career of Stewart, who can become the 18th coach in NAIA history to win 700-or-more games in Wednesday's championship games.
• OIT will be playing for an NAIA championship for the third time – defeating Cal Baptist, 1-0, in 2011 to win the title, while losing two games to SOU in the 2021 championship series.
• Tech and Southern have met six times this season, with the Owls holding a 5-1 series edge – including 7-0 and 10-2 OIT wins in Klamath Falls in March and a 10-0 SOU win in Saturday's quarterfinals.