Williamsburg, KY - In their second game of the NAIA Opening Round, the Patriots took down the Madonna Crusaders 4-2 to advance to the Championship game. The victory puts UC into the final games of the Williamsburg Opening Round and means the winner of the loser's bracket will have to defeat Cumberlands twice on Wednesday.

Emily Bryant led the way for UC, recording her first multi-home run game of her career. Bryant drove in two runs off a pair of homers and Paxton Hoop provided the other two off a single to left field. Cumberlands notched seven hits in the contest with both Bryant and Mackenzie Pawlak tallying a pair.

Once again all three arms of Morgan Radford, Kaiti White and Talli Burgess all being on display in the circle. Radford got the start and her 15th win of the season after going 4.1 innings, giving up the just one run off three hits, while striking out one. White was the first one off the bench again with 1.1 innings of work, striking out two batters, giving up one run on three hits. Burgess was the final pitcher, finishing the last 1.1 innings to earn her fifth save of the season, tying her single season record from each of the past two seasons. In her five batters faced, Burgess struckout one and only conceded one hit.

Both teams went three up, three down in the first frame with Radford ending her side with a backward K. In the second the Crusaders got runners on the corners with two outs. The batter sailed the ball into shallow right center, but Carly Oliver was all over it, diving to make the grab and allow no runs to cross.

With two outs on the board, Pawlak hit a hard ball to third base and beat it out. She swiped second base and then when Hailey Wood was walked, a wild pitch put Pawlak at third. Wood followed suit and stole second herself. On a 3-1 count, Hoop drove the ball to left center, bringing in both Pawlak and Wood for the 2-0 UC lead.

In the next inning after three quick outs on defense Cumberlands got another run on the board. Bryant launched the ball into center field for the no doubt home run, making it 3-0.

The Crusaders answered back with a run of their own off two hits to make it 3-1. After Madonna got a runner to second with one out, White entered the game. She issued a grounder and then with the runner on second, White struckout the final batter of the inning to keep it a two run lead for the Pats.

In the bottom of the fifth with two outs on the board, Bryant blasted another shot over the fence, this time to left center to push the lead back to three runs at 4-1.

To start the sixth, the Crusaders racked up three hits to drive in a run, bringing Burgess into the contest. The Crandall, GA native got the first batter to fly out to Pawlak in right to not let any more runs cross the plate.

Burgess then shutdown Madonna in the seventh, to clinch the 4-2 win for UC. The victory improves the Pats to 46-3-1 on the season and into the championship, needing just one more win to advance them to the NAIA World Series. 

Cumberlands is awaiting their opponent and will face the winner of game six in the Williamsburg Opening Round. The game time and opponent will be announced as soon as it is known on cumberlandspatriots.com.

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