Senior second baseman Emma Burnham from Limington walloped her second homer of the game with one out in the bottom of the seventh inning to give Waterville’s Colby College softball team a 3-2 victory over host Husson University in the NCAA Division III Regional at the Robert and Frances O’Keefe Softball Field on the Husson campus in Bangor.
Colby, appearing in its first ever regional, then beat Endicott College from Massachusetts in another elimination game later Friday afternoon, 6-3.
That sends 28-12 Colby, 2-1 in the double-elimination tourney, into Saturday’s championship round against 2-0 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first game is at 11 a.m. with the if-necessary game to follow.
Colby had lost to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 7-2 in Thursday’s first-round game after Endicott had beaten Husson 7-4 in the tourney opener.
MIT, now 35-9, then advanced to Saturday’s 11 a.m. championship round with a 9-3 victory over Endicott.
Husson concluded a 36-6 campaign.
Colby is coached by former Husson head coach and UMaine and Bucksport High School star Terren (Hall) Allen.
Burnham, a standout at Bonny Eagle High of Buxton, had homered in the first inning to give the Mules a 1-0 lead, and she also singled before hitting her fifth homer of the season in the seventh.
Husson tied it 1-1 in the second on an error, a walk, a sacrifice and Tayler Watterson’s run-scoring single.
The Eagles took a 2-1 lead in the fourth on a walk, Jetta Shook’s double and Allie Casavant’s run-scoring single, but Colby tied it in the fifth on a walk, Burnham’s base hit and Juliana Kiley’s RBI double.
Sophomore lefthander Sophia Meade picked up the win in relief of KC DeSarno as she threw 5 ⅔ innings of five-hit, one-run ball. She walked two and didn’t strike out anyone.
Junior righty Ana Lang went the distance for Husson, allowing seven hits and three earned runs in 6 ⅓ innings with three walks and two strikeouts.
Lang finished up with a 23-5 record.
Kiley had a single to go with her double for Colby. Julia Berry had a double.
Shook had a single to go with her double for Husson and Morgan Tainter, and Sophia Lynch each had a double.