In a day that took two days to complete due to weather, the University of North Alabama softball team had its 2024 Atlantic Sun Conference tournament run come to a close with a 5-1 loss to Central Arkansas on Friday at Choccolocco Park in Oxford, Ala.
The Bears advance to the 5:30 p.m. game to play the winner of No. 1 EKU and No. 7 Queens. Meanwhile, the Lions are eliminated from the tournament and end their run with a 1-2 tournament record. UNA and Central Arkansas also even the season series with two wins each.
In the last two seasons of postseason ASUN softball, UNA owns a record of 5-4.
The fifth-seeded Lions had one of the toughest roads in this season's tournament, including a single elimination game against an Austin Peay team coming off back-to-back series wins over FGCU and UNA. The Lions dispatched Austin Peay with a 3-0 shutout victory.
In the next round, UNA faced No. 4 FGCU, who remained among the top two or three teams all season before slipping to Austin Peay and Kennesaw State in the final series. Since then, FGCU pulled off a 2-1 walk-off win over UNA and an extra-innings win over top seed FGCU.
This led UNA to face No. 3 Central Arkansas, who is the defending ASUN Champions.
After two scoreless innings on Thursday night, a weather delay forced the game to be postponed to Friday morning at 10 a.m. On the very first pitch, senior McKenzie Patterson smacked a triple, but was stranded on third.
All four of UNA's hits were multi-base hits, including back-to-back doubles by Patterson and senior Jaiden Farnetti to manufacture UNA's first run. This tied the game in the top of the fifth after UCA brought in an unearned run in the fourth.
The Bears had a four run fifth inning to take the lead, and the Lions were unable to rally back.
The Lions have not had a losing season since 2012, making this the 12th straight season with either a winning record or a tied record — which happened once in a shortened 2021 season. UNA has posted at least 34 wins and no more than 20 losses in each of the last three seasons.
UNA ends the season with a 35-19 overall record and a 15-9 record in ASUN play to finish fifth in the conference.
