Junior outfielder Avery Wukawitz slides under a tag second base. Tommie softball split Friday’s doubleheader 1-1 with NDSU. (Victor Mshihiri/The Crest) 
The Tommies won the first game 12-2, but fell in the second 5-4. (Victor Mshihiri/The Crest) 
Junior infielder Ruby Moore batted in three runs with a first-inning triple in game one. (Eli Andersen/The Crest) 
St. Thomas now sits at 32-17 overall and 13-4 in conference play. (Eli Andersen/The Crest) 
UST now needs a win Saturday to clinch the Summit League title. (Victor Mshihiri/The Crest)
The St. Thomas softball team pushed back their opportunity to clinch the Summit League title Friday after splitting the doubleheader against NDSU.
If the Tommies had won both games they would’ve secured the conference championship, and won it outright with a sweep of the series on Saturday. Now, UST needs to win Saturday morning to win the league alongside Omaha.
“We’re just hungry. And after you get some five minutes of reflection and just gotta sweep it and flush it and come back tomorrow,” senior outfielder Kaitlyn Raymond said.
Coach Jen Trotter’s squad now sits at a Division-I era best 32-17 overall, far surpassing the 18-win record set in 2023. The team’s 13 victories in Summit League play this year are also a D-I era record.
“The depth of our talent has helped some of the names that have been in our lineup for the last four years, but having depth of talent means practice is harder. It means there’s more competition for positions, which elevates everybody’s level of play,” Trotter said.
After finishing sixth twice, and a distant third in the league standings the past three seasons, the Tommies are on the doorstep of their first Summit League title.
All Trotter needs them to do is turn the handle and step in, something she said isn’t as simple as it sounds.
“It’s like squeezing the baby chick. They want it so badly and understandably so, and sometimes when you want something really, really badly, you’re going to play out-of-your-mind-well,” Trotter said, “And sometimes you’re going to play out-of-your-mind-bad.”
The Tommies played out-of-their-minds-well in the first game Friday, but had lapses in their second game that led to the loss.
St. Thomas opened the first game with a 6-0 first inning, including junior infielder Ruby Moore’s triple to center field that brought three runners across home plate. The play sent a wave of muffled clapps through mittens, in pockets and under blankets, while cheers cut through the cold air.
St. Thomas’ first-year pitcher Ava Kleinfeldt held firm on the mound while her teammates shored up the defense and let up just two runs, both in the third inning.
Seven different Tommies recorded at least one hit in game one, including two from Raymond. The senior also set the program record of career games played at 199 across her four seasons.
“I’ve put my heart and soul into this program just like a lot of these other girls, like Cassidy Carby and Ella Cook, so it’s definitely a little sentimental to finally be coming to a close after four years,” Raymond said.
When asked about what she would remember from the seniors over the past years, Trotter joked: “Besides all the losses?”
“Part of going through all of those difficult times, it allowed us to develop our culture the way that we want it to be developed and part of that is we approach game day the same. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. It doesn’t matter what our situation is, we’re going to control what we can control,” Trotter said.
Control is exactly what St. Thomas needed in its second game. From an outside perspective, it’s not clear what could cause a team to swing from a 12-2 win into a 5-4 loss, but one play gave those in attendance a glimpse.
Having homered in the third inning, junior centerfielder Avery Wukawitz now had a chance to make a play on the other side of the ball in extra innings.
In the top of the eighth, with bases loaded, NDSU junior infielder Zoe King popped a ball out to center field where Wukawitz was able to get under it for a fly out.
With Bison at every turn, Wukawitz attempted to rifle the ball to home plate, but instead sent it nearly over the backstop.
Trotter confirmed it was due to nerves and said, “I mean, good lord, Avery air-mailing that ball from center field. I’m like, ‘Oh, so if anyone needed to know if anybody’s nervous around here, that would be your sign right there.’”
That one mistake was just one of multiple UST committed, but had the unfortunate consequence of being the most obvious.
St. Thomas couldn’t recreate the first game’s scoring frenzy even after getting eleven hits off NDSU’s junior pitcher Piper Reed.
“I just think we need to come and handle our business tomorrow and play like the team that we’ve been playing like for the past however many weeks, not the one that showed up the second game,” Trotter said, “And hopefully in having that second game today, they go, ‘Oh I know what that felt like. I don’t want to do that again.”
Raymond echoed her coach’s statement.
“Our energy was very high today, and we just kept pushing regardless of the circumstances. Whether we were up by eight or down by four, our energy never changed and we kept pushing through,” Raymond said.
The Tommies’ final game of the season is set for 11 a.m. Saturday at South Field.
Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.
