CHADRON, Neb. -- April 26, 2019 -- The Chadron State College softball team still clings to a hope of a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference tournament after splitting a pair of games at home against Black Hills State University on the second-to-last day of the season. The Eagles downed the Yellow Jackets 5-2 in the first game and came up on the short end of a 12-7 decision in game two of the doubleheader Friday.

Chadron State, now 14-33 (11-26 RMAC), moved up to 10th place after two losses by Fort Lewis College to Dixie State in Durango. The Eagles remain essentially a game and a half behind both CSU-Pueblo and Adams State, with two left to play for everyone. 

The Yellow Jackets (11-28, 8-23 RMAC) were eliminated from playoff contention with their first loss of the series.

CSC took a 3-0 lead in both games. In the game one Peyton Propp remained consistent in the circle through seven innings, giving up only three hits. However, the Yellow Jackets got the better of the Eagles' rotation in game two, piling up 15 hits and eight walks to pull ahead down the stretch.

In the first inning of the noon game, freshmen infielders Bailey Marvel and Haleigh Hoefs combined to score the first CSC run after Marvel hit a leadoff double, Angelica Maples sac bunted her to third, and Hoefs walked to put runners on the corners with one out.

Hoefs took off for second during the next at-bat, but was held up by the shortstop, who tried unsuccessfully to run Hoefs down. The ploy worked to score Marvel from third in the meantime, and Hoefs safely retuned to first.

Kayla Michel, Bailey Rominger and Lauren Renck then got base hits, before the end of the first, to make the score 3-0.

Hoefs homered to lead off the third, and later, Ellie Owens reached home on a sac fly by Gabby Russell to bump CSC to a 5-0 lead.

In the fifth Black Hills slapped two of its three base hits plus a sac fly, and one Yellow Jacket batter walked, giving the visitors their only points of the game.

Hoefs hit her second home run of the day in the first inning of the second game, putting CSC up 2-0. In the second inning, Marvel's RBI single put her team up 3-0.

Black Hills got on the board with a single run in the third using a pair of base hits to lead off the inning, and aided by a stolen base. The Yellow Jackets tied things up 3-3 in the fourth when Maddi Fiddler hit a two-run homer off starter Cassidy Horn, who was then replaced by sophomore Gabby Russell.

Russell fared about as well in the fifth. BHSU's Dominique DiManna belted a three-run shot to put her team up for the first time in the game, by a score of 6-3.

In the sixth, two more CSC pitchers entered, but the Yellow Jackets appeared to have put the game out of reach and into rul-rule range by piling on five more runs.

Then, in one last sixth-inning push, the Eagles loaded the bases before Maples sent a pitch screaming down the left field line and over the fence for a grand slam.

The 11-7 deficit was too much to overcome, however, and BHSU added an insurance run in the top of the seventh to win 12-7.

The two teams will play another doubleheader on Saturday, beginning at 11 a.m., on Chadron State's Senior Day.