Ashland, Wis. – The Minnesota Morris softball team nearly finished the season with a clean sweep of the UMAC Crossover on Apr. 28, beating Northland 9-5, before falling 5-4 to St. Scholastica on a walk-off homerun in the seventh.

Looking to tie records for conference wins and overall wins set last season, Morris (17-17, 14-7 UMAC) took a 4-1 lead on St. Scholastica (29-8, 20-1 UMAC) in the top of the sixth, needing just six outs to had the league-leaders just their second loss of the season.

The Saints came back to tie it with three runs in the bottom of the sixth, getting an RBI single, double and triple to head to the seventh all knotted up at 4-4. In the top half of the inning, the Cougars went quietly with three straight strikeouts, leaving the Saints with one last chance with their leader, Bonnie Kowalczyk coming to the plate.

Kowalczyk wasted little time in give her squad the win, smashing a homerun over the fence in right center for the walkoff 5-4 win.

Earlier in the day, the Cougars won their third straight to set up the showdown with the Saints, putting a scoring rally through the middle-innings to take a 9-5 win from Northland.

The Cougars went up 2-0 after the third, and extended it to 7-0 after the top of the fourth. The LumberJills (18-20, 11-12 UMAC) got five runs back in the fourth, but UMM answered with one each in the fifth and sixth keep its distance.

Mariah Essig allowed just six hits to earn her 11th win of the season, striking out three, while walking just four.

Molly Olson notched two hits in each game and wraps up the year with hits in 25 consecutive games. She went 4-for-8 on the day with three doubles and two runs scored. Laura Lhotka went 3-for-6 over the two games, while Natasha Wiebold also finished with multiple hits.

The Cougars will now move on to the UMAC Tournament next weekend as the No. 2 seed, and will open up with third seeded Northwestern. The tourney starts May 4 in Duluth, Minn, with the Cougars and Eagles playing the first game at 10:00 a.m.