USF softball advances to Fayetteville Regional final with more late-inning heroics

For the second straight night, South Florida needed a late rally Saturday to defeat Washington at the NCAA softball Fayetteville Regional tournament.

Olivia Elliott hit a home run and Karhys Pierce stroked a two-RBI single in the sixth inning to send the Bulls to a 6-4 victory over the Huskies, earning a spot in Sunday’s regional final.

The reward for the heroics: another shot at host and No. 2 seed Arkansas, which sent the Bulls to the elimination bracket with an easy 9-1 win in six innings (one-run rule) earlier in the day,

The Razorbacks put up five runs on USF ace Anne Long before the game’s second out.

Sunday’s championship game begins at 2 p.m. If USF beats Arkansas, they’ll play again at 4:30 p.m. for a chance to move onto the NCAA super regionals. ESPN+ has the telecast.

The Bulls (44-16) are in a regional final for the first time since 2021.

Bulls rally late after coach ejected early

Unlike Friday’s pitching duel that the Bulls pulled out in the seventh inning, the USF-UW rematch featured five lead changes and plenty of offense.

Most of it was played without Bulls head coach Ken Eriksen, who was ejected in the second inning during an argument with third base umpire Shawn Shumacher.

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The spat followed the ejection of USF’s Toryn Fulton, who was called for malicious contact for colliding with Huskies third baseman Giselle Alvarez on a stolen-base attempt. After a video review, Eriksen argued with Shumacher, who quickly tossed the coach.

“We've been in this situation before,” USF sophomore Alexa Galligani said. “We know Coach Eriksen is going to have our back in certain situations, and we're here for it 100%. And he knows that that fires us up. We're going to play for him, we're going to play for each other and we're going to ultimately come out with a win, which is what we did.”

To get there, however, the teams traded punches at the plate, beginning when Washington’s Jadyn Glab and Ava Carroll who hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the fourth inning to give the Huskies a 2-1 advantage.

RBI singles by Galligani and DaNia Brooks put USF ahead 3-2 in the fifth, and the Huskies answered in the sixth, when Giselle Alvarez doubled to left, scoring Sophi Mazzola and Tia Durst.

USF trailed 4-3 going into the bottom of the sixth when Elliott went deep off UW reliever Ryan Maddox. Kathy Garcia-Soto and Galligani singled and advanced a base on Alex Wilkes’ flyout, then scored on Pierce’s game-winning single.

“I think it says that we're not happy to just be here,” said Galligani. “We're here to compete. I know that early in the game certain things didn't go our way, but that doesn't waver our attention from what we have to do, which is score runs, play defense and ultimately win.”

USF starter Carley Ernst had a career-best eight strikeouts and allowed two runs over four innings. Long (23-6) pitched three innings of relief to earn the win.

“Ernst came in and did a great job to get us through the four innings,” said USF assistant coach Lisa Navas, who filled in for Eriksen during the postgame press conference. “And then Anne did what Anne does is her job, to get ground-ball outs or situations happen for us and we got to play defense behind her.”

Arkansas cruises to 9-1 victory in early game

Earlier, Arkansas (44-11) used a first-inning grand slam by Karlie Davison to jump to a 5-0 lead over the Bulls.

Long, who started in the circle after tossing a complete-game win against Washington on Friday night, was pulled after one-third of an inning for Belle Sardja.

It was the Razorbacks’ eighth grand slam of the season, the most in program history.

Arkansas added three runs on two hits in the top of the third, extending the lead to 8-0.

USF made it 8-1 on a sacrifice fly by Toryn Fulton that scored pinch runner Grace Chin from third base.

Starter Robyn Herron (16-6), who played with Brooks at Tampa’s Sickles High, tossed four innings for Arkansas, allowing one run on three hits and striking out three. Saylor Timmerman threw two scoreless innings in relief.

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Ericksen, in his 29^th season leading the program and the 16th-winningest coach in Division I, is expected to be in the dugout Sunday.

“We can't control anything more than what's there,” Navas said. “I thought we played well (against Arkansas), got a little frustrated in some situations. They’ve got great pitching and they're a good team, but we're ready to battle.”

Washington (37-20) defeated Fordham 5-2 in an elimination game Saturday to set up the nightcap rematch with USF.