OXFORD, Ala. – The University of West Florida softball team dropped two games in Day 1 of the Gulf South Conference Championship, ending the team's run at the tournament. The Argonauts (30-14) will now wait to see the result of the final NCAA South Region rankings on May 17, to see if they reach the NCAA Tournament.
 
Six teams will advance to the South Regional of the NCAA Tournament this year, and UWF was fifth in the latest NCAA Regional rankings, released on Wednesday.
 
Despite the losses on Thursday, the Argonauts got several strong performances and some late-inning heroics. Teala Howard, Ally Merrill, and Kara Wilson each had three hits across the two games, and Wilson's home run in Game 1 tied things up in the seventh inning.
 
Freshman pitcher Montana Young was stellar in relief on Thursday, throwing 10.1 total innings with 10 strikeouts and no walks to go along with a 1.35 ERA. She was ultimately charged with the loss in each game.
 
GAME 1: UWF 3, West Georgia 5 (10 innings)
West Georgia got out to a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning, but a sacrifice fly from Jacquelynne Poling in the bottom of the fourth cut into the UWG lead.
 
After the teams traded zeroes for the next two innings, Poling lead off the bottom of the seventh with a double that dropped between shortstop and left field. Two batters later, Kara Wilson blasted her 11th home run of the season through a howling wind down the left field line to tie the game at 3-3.
 
Wilson's 11 home runs are the most for an Argonaut since 2010, when Shannon Miles hit 12, and it puts her in rare air in the UWF record books. She is just the 13th Argonaut with 11 home runs in a season in program history.
 
UWF would put together threats to score more in the seventh, ninth, and tenth innings, but could not push across a run.
 
West Georgia scored twice in the top of the 10th, on a squeeze play and on a passed ball just a batter later, to go ahead 5-3.
 
Grace Gilbert got the start in the circle for UWF and went 3.2 innings with three runs allowed, before Montana Young entered. The freshman threw 5.2 innings of relief and struck out 8 batters, before Kelsey Sweatt got the final two outs of the game.
 
The Argonaut pitching staff finished the game with 11 strikeouts and no walks.
 
Merrill and Wilson each had two hits in the game.
 
UWG starter Morgan Goree earned the win, throwing 177 pitches over 10.0 innings.
 
GAME 2: UWF 2, Montevallo 3
The Argonauts jumped ahead 2-0 in the first inning in Game 2, with Teala Howard scoring on an Ally Merrill sacrifice bunt, and Mika Garcia coming in on Kara Wilson's double down the left field line.
 
Montevallo evened the score in the bottom of the second, however, with back-to-back RBI singles through the infield.
 
Kelsey Sweatt's day would be done after the second, going 2.0 innings with four strikeouts and two runs allowed. Young entered and threw the final 4.2 innings in relief, allowing just one run.
 
The teams would trade zeroes until the bottom of the seventh, when Montevallo right fielder Holly LaForce singled to right-center to give UM the walk-off win.
 
UWF put at least one runner on base in every inning other than the sixth.
 
Teala Howard had two hits in Game 2, stretching her hitting streak to 15 games, and Merrill stretched hers to 6 games. This is her third career hitting streak of at least 15 games – a mark that has only been reached 13 times in UWF history.