SAN MARCOS, Texas – Texas State softball will play No. 1 seed Louisiana in the 2024 Sun Belt Conference Championship after wins over Marshall and South Alabama on Friday afternoon.
 
The Bobcats started out the day with a 8-2 win over the Marshall Thundering Herd after a weather delay forced the quarter-final match up to be played on Friday afternoon instead of Thursday night. Despite the postponement, the Bobcats came out swinging with a four-run first inning to propel themselves to an 8-2 win.
 
In the semi-final game against South Alabama, it took extra innings for Kat Zarate to hit a walk-off home run off Olivia Lackie to seal the game for the Bobcats. After coming back from being down 3-0 to win 4-3, the Bobcats clinched their spot in the 2024 Conference Championship.

The Bobcats will make their return to the Sun Belt Conference Championship for the first time since 2022 where they faced the Ragin' Cajuns in Mobile, Alabama. This will be the Bobcats 5^th all-time meeting with the Ragin' Cajuns in the Sun Belt Conference Championship.
 
The Championship game will be in Bobcat Softball Stadium at 1 pm. Tickets can be purchased at txst.com/tickets and the game will be streamed on ESPN+.

What Head Coach Ricci Woodard said: "Obviously hats off to Olivia Lackie and the South Alabama Jaguars. What a fight. I can't wait to watch what they do next weekend at regionals. It's going to be fun. What a great conference this is right now. I couldn't be more proud of my team and the fight and the fight through adversity that they continue to have. It's never the same hero and that's what I love about this group.
 
What Pitcher Jessica Mullins said: "We knew it was going to be a fight from pitch number one all the way until the last one. We knew that we would have to just keep battling each pitch. After the three up, we just had to figure it out. I don't really get in the way of the batters' conversation, but I knew they needed to do some work, I knew I didn't do my best, I didn't perform well enough to keep a good caliber team like them off the board. But I knew my team was going to have my back either way.
 
What Second Basemen Kat Zarate said: "We knew it was going to be a fight. They're a great team. We all came together after that inning and took a big breath as a team and just said 'stick to our plan, it'll come.'  We just kept working as a team and we never had a doubt in our minds that we were going to execute."

HOW IT HAPPENED:
Vanderford Pushes Bobcats to 8-2 Quarter-Final Win
Sara Vanderford went three-for-four on the day with two doubles, a triple and four RBI to push the Bobcats to a 8-2 win over the #10 seed Marshall in the quarter-finals of the 2024 Sun Belt Conference Championship. 
 
Jessica Mullins started in the circle for the Bobcats and pitched 4.1 innings for her 28^th win of the season. She allowed just one hit and walked one batter while striking out four batters. Her 4^th batter tallied her 200^th of the 2024 season. She got her first strikeout off the Thundering Herd's second batter, while also giving up her lone walk that inning. The Bobcat defense turned a double play to get out of the inning, though.
 
Starting things off offensively was Hannah Earls, who reached on a throwing error by the Herd shortstop, advancing to second on the play. She'd go on to be scored by an Emilee Baker triple, Baker's 3^rd of the season. From there, Vanderford would hit her first RBI double of the day to score Baker. This was her 23^rd of the season, the most by any Bobcat in a single season.
 
That forced the Thundering Herd into a pitching change. Anna Jones then singled to short and advanced Vanderford to third. She'd go on to score on a Piper Randolph ground out. Bobcats would score their 4^th on a JJ Smith sacrifice fly.
 
In the 2^nd inning, Mullins retired three straight batters via strikeout. She caught two looking and one swinging for those three strikeouts.
 
From there the Herd defense settled in and were able to hold the Bobcats to getting more runs until the 4^thinnings. In the 4^th, though, Earls got an RBI ground out to make things 5-0. Vanderford would go on to hit her second RBI double of the day for the 6^th run.
 
Tori McCann came in to pitch after one out in the 5^th inning. She'd strike out a batter in three pitches for the out.
 
Marshall pulled back one run in the 6^th on an RBI ground out.
 
Texas State added its final two runs of the game off Vanderford's RBI triple to right field after Earls and Baker got on base.
 
Marshall pulled back one more run to make it 8-2 off an RBI double in the 7^th, but it wasn't enough to stage a comeback and the Bobcats advanced to the Sun Belt Tournament semi-finals.
 

Bobcats Clinch Championship Berth in Extra Innings

Maddy Azua started in the circle for the Bobcats, getting a strikeout against the first batter faced. She forced two more groundouts to get out of the inning. From there, the Bobcats were able to get two hits in the 1^st but were unable to put any runs across.

Neither side was able to find much momentum until Gabby Stagner hit a solo shot to left field in the top of the 4^th. Her RBI broke a three-inning deadlock and helped get the Jaguars some momentum. Jessica Mullins came in at that point to pitch. From there though, Ordalys Cordova hit a two RBI double to take the Jags up 3-0.

Mullins struck out three-straight batters in the top of the 5^th to silence the Jaguar attack.

In the 6^th the Bobcats were able to equalize the game off a string of hits starting with a leadoff single from Anna Jones. From there, Jones advanced to third on JJ Smith's single. With two outs in the inning, Olivia Lackie walked Kat Zarate. On the next batter, Sydney Harvey would single to left to bring one run across with two in scoring position. On Hannah Earls' single up the middle she batted in two runners to tie the game.

From there, it was all Mullins. In the 7^th she struck out a batter, in the 8^th she struck out two. Ending the night with nine strikeouts in 4 innings of work. 

Then came the bottom of the 8^th which started with a Karmyn Bass pop up. Then, as Coach Woodard has been 'saying to her all season,' Kat Zarate hit a first-pitch home run over the left field fence to win the game. She rounded the bases celebrating the game-winning run with her team as the sophomore clinched the spot in the 2024 Sun Belt Conference Championship.