CHADRON, Neb. -- April 27, 2019 -- The Chadron State College softball team turned the page on the 2019 season on Saturday, finishing 14-35 overall, and 11-28 in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, after Black Hills State University slipped away with two games Saturday and a series win in Chadron. The Yellow Jackets won 8-7 and 5-4 to complete both teams' seasons.

"We kind of put ourselves in a position where the last weekend was really big," said CSC Head Softball Coach Kaley Ness, "and that was the tough thing. Even though the girls played their hearts out, Black Hills came out and did their job. It's unfortunate that we don't make it to the tournament for the first time in a while, but this team will do wonderful things when you see our young kids stepping up."

When Black Hills' Alex Wiley and Katelyn Odle homered back-to-back at the top of the order, game three in the series looked to have gotten away from the Eagles in the top of the first inning Saturday. A pitching change immediately followed, and Britny Davis went five and one-third innings allowing CSC to claw back in the game by the bottom of the third inning. 

Chadron State was able to even things up in the bottom of the inning, helped by an error on second base. Bailey Marvel scored on the throwing error, and Bailey Rominger had an RBI single scoring Haleigh Hoefs.

Five more hits came off the Yellow Jacket bats in the second, and Wiley had two more RBI on a single to put her team back on top, 4-2.

In the third, however, Hoefs and Kayla Michel went yard on back-to-back at-bats, putting the Eagles in control 5-4 after an Angelica Maples leadoff single.

The Yellow Jackets would not be quieted, though. They struck back in the fourth with a sac fly to tie and a go-ahead run scored on a misplay by the Eagles' Hoefs at second base. In the fifth, BHSU's Maddi Fidler tacked on another leadoff solo homer to make it 7-5.

Black Hills' lead grew to 8-5 before Chadron State once again showed rally. A leadoff double by Alyssa Geist in the sixth started a run and Marvel followed her up with another double to score. Maples' RBI single to follow cut the BHSU lead to 8-7 with no outs.

A pitching change for the Yellow Jackets proved to be the right move, however, when Breanna Hendrickson entered and recorded outs on two of the Eagles' next three at-bats.

CSC senior pitcher Dallas Magnusson, who came into the game in the sixth, retired the final five batters for Black Hills with three strikeouts, but the Eagles were unable to generate the tying run by the end of regulation.

Game four of the series looked to be a duel to the wire between Black Hills ace Crystal Amaral and Magnusson. Each pitcher gave up only two hits through four innings, and no runs through five, before the Yellow Jackets caught fire in the sixth, starting again with two solo home runs and finishing with five runs on six total hits.

The Eagles' three seniors remaining on the field - pitcher Magnusson, first baseman Michel, and outfielder Alyssa Geist -  exited to a standing ovation with one out left in the seventh, and Peyton Propp struck out the final BHSU batter. 

BHSU's 5-0 lead was just enough to prove the winning margin down the stretch, keeping the visitors in front as Michel homered for the final time in her career and Maples sent one final report, a three-run blast to cut it to 5-4.

Hoefs came up and singled with the game's final out on the line, but Amaral ended the game with a strikeout.

Black Hills State will end its 2019 campaign at 13-28 (10-23 RMAC).

"It wasn't the outcome that we worked so hard to achieve," said Ness. "Even still, I'm really proud of our team, and I'm proud of the process they went through. Taking this momentum into next year is going to be a beautiful thing."

Hoefs and Marvel, the dynamic infield freshman duo for the Eagles in 2019 both batted .500 in the series. Hoefs was good for three homers on the weekend and added three walks. Michel was just behind at 6-for-13, and her three RBI set a new single-season record for CSC with 53 on the year.

Hoefs also finished the season with a new single-season slugging record of .837, to go with a tie for most doubles (19) and most total bases (118). Coming into the season those belonged solely to Katelyn Kruger, Allison Hendricksen and Kate Bolin, respectively. She brushed against Patti Buettner's single-season batting mark of .448, falling one-tenth of a percent short at .447.

Magnusson finished 2019 with the third-lowest single-season walks per game ratio on record at 2.12, to go with her all-time best of 1.05 set in 2017.

Marvel will enter 2020 defending the career batting average mark from Hoefs, as her 169 at bats qualified her for the all-time record at .396, pulling in front of Lindsey Karlin's .388. She also tied the single-season mark for triples with four.

Hoefs needs just nine more trips to the plate to qualify for the career batting title.

Chadron State will miss the RMAC Tournament for the first time in four seasons.The program has five postseason appearances in its first 13 seasons of competition.