Gophers defeat Northwestern 9-6 for third straight Big Ten softball title

May 14, 2018 at 12:33PM
Teammates celebrated with Minnesota infielder Makenna Partain (3) after Partain's grand slam against Wisconsin in a game last month.
Teammates celebrated with Minnesota infielder Makenna Partain (3) after Partain's grand slam against Wisconsin in a game last month. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Minnesota jumped to a 6-0 lead in the second inning and held on to defeat Northwestern 9-6 Sunday in Madison, Wis., to win its third consecutive Big Ten softball title.

The regional matchups for the NCAA tournament will be announced tonight at 9 p.m. on ESPN2.

Dani Wagner hit a two-homer for the Gophers to cap a four-run first inning and Allie Arneson added a two-run homer in the third to give Minnesota an 8-3 lead.

The Gophers (39-15) have won 22 of their last 24 games. Before that surge, they had lost two of three games to Northwestern in Big Ten play.

A box score and play-by-play from the game, which was delayed from Saturday night by bad weather, are here.

You can read more about the Gophers' regular season here.

The Gophers beat No. 3-seed Indiana in the semifinals. You can get the play-by-play and statistics from that game here.

Tweets from @GopherSoftball are here.

ADVERTISEMENT
about the writer

about the writer

More from Sports

See More
card image
Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune

Curlers Tabitha Peterson Lovick and Tara Peterson and hockey player Kendall Coyne Schofield decided to have children between Olympics. It required careful planning and dedicated support systems.

card image
card image