Softball Team Defeats Ole Miss for First NCAA Win Since 2005, Falls to Louisiana

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Cassidy Shaw threw five shutout innings, Brielle Wright broke an Ivy League record with her 11th career save, and Sonia Zhang and Julia Dumais each drove in a pair of runs as the Princeton softball team defeated Ole Miss 4-2 on Saturday for the program's first NCAA tournament win since 2005.

The Tigers' run came to an end hours later with a 2-1, eight-inning loss to host and No. 13 national seed Louisiana as Princeton ended the season at 30-18 for its first 30-win season since 2006.

The win over Ole Miss was Princeton's first over a team in the SEC at the time of the game since 2003, when it had its only other such win over Tennessee in a regular-season game. It was the first win for an Ivy League team in the NCAA tournament since 2012, when Harvard won two games.

Shaw dueled with Ole Miss starter Catelyn Riley for four scoreless innings before Princeton broke through in the fifth. Sophia Marsalo led off the inning with a double, and with Lauren Pappert running for Marsalo, Sonia Zhang drew a two-out walk four batters later to pick up Pappert and open the scoring. Lauren Sablone followed with a walk that moved Zhang and Caitlin Bish, who had worked a walk before Zhang, into scoring position, and Dumais brought home both Bish and Zhang with a base hit to left to make it 3-0.

Shaw exited after five innings that saw her allow just three hits and a walk, striking out eight to tie for the third-most strikeouts by a Tiger in an NCAA tournament game proper (regional or later), even with eight from Maureen Barron '97 against Boston University in 1996 and behind only 10 from Brie Galicinao '02 against Minnesota in 2002 and 12 from Erin Snyder '06 against N.C. State in 2006. Barron and Snyder went seven innings and Galicinao went six in those efforts.

Ole Miss struck for two sixth-inning runs against Wright, but Princeton got one back in the seventh. Grace Jackson reached on a two-base throwing error and Zhang dropped a hit down the right-field line to pick up Jackson to make it 4-2, and after Wright dropped the Rebels in order in the seventh, Princeton had its long-awaited NCAA tournament win.

??? A look back at today's historic @NCAASoftball tournament win over Ole Miss! pic.twitter.com/ZKl1sC0wUa
— Princeton Softball (@PUSoftball) May 19, 2024

Princeton nearly had its first multi-win NCAA tournament since 1996. Wright, making her first start of the season in the circle, ended up with two stints in the circle in the one-run loss to Louisiana, first going 4 1/3 innings and allowing an unearned run on five hits and two walks, leaving in the fifth with a 1-1 tie. Wright re-entered to get the final out of the sixth and threw the last two full innings as the eventual winning run scored after a leadoff triple inside the right-field line with a sacrifice fly.

Both runs before the eventual game-winner scored in the third inning. Two singles and an error loaded the bases for a sacrifice fly to put Louisiana up 1-0 in the top of the first. Princeton tied it after a Jackson led off the bottom of the third with a base hit, went to second on a sacrifice and came home on a Zhang hit to centerfield to tie it at 1-1.

Cassidy Shaw threw the 1 1/3 innings in between Wright's two stints against Louisiana, allowing just a hit and a walk and adding two Ks for a total of 10 on the day in 6 1/3 innings.

The day marked the end of the Tiger careers of the team's four seniors in Jackson, rightfielder Cate Bade, Caitlin Bish, who pinch hit, and pitcher Molly Chambers, who saw action in Friday's game against Louisiana.

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