ABILENE, Texas -- No. 3-ranked and top-seeded Texas Lutheran stormed past No. 3 seed Concordia (TX) in Sunday's Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Softball Championship semifinal, winning 4-1 at Edwards Field in Abilene.
The Bulldogs were powered by a solo home run from
Cady Bowyer (Fulshear/Jordan) and a four-hit performance in the circle from
Jordyn Joy (Kerrville/Tivy) and
Katelyn Howard (Waller/Hempstead).
With the win, Texas Lutheran secured their 12th straight SCAC Championship appearance and improved to 33-5 all-time in SCAC Tournament history. It took until the 41st game of the season, but Sunday's contest is the first game all season in which the Bulldogs did not steal a single base.
A phenomenal start by sophomore left-handed pitcher Jordyn Joy and lights-out relief courtesy of Katelyn Howard led No. 3 Texas Lutheran to the 4-1 win.
Joy earned her first career postseason start, rewarding the Bulldogs with 6.0 innings of excellent work. The left-hander struck out seven batters in six innings, allowing just one run on four hits and two walks to improve to 11-1. The seven strikeouts are the most by a Bulldogs pitcher in a single SCAC Tournament outing since Ashlyn Strother struck out seven against Trinity in the 2022 SCAC Championship game.
After retiring the Tornados in order in the top of the first, the Bulldogs came out on fire scoring three runs on three hits. After a leadoff walk to Caelee Clark (Montgomery/Lake Creek), an RBI single from Serena Gonzalez (Corpus Christi/Foy H. Moody) scored Clark to get the Bulldogs on the board. With the run scored, Clark broke the TLU & SCAC single-season and career runs scored records, scoring her 66th run of the season and 235th of her career.
The Bulldogs loaded the bases with two outs before Harleigh Russell (Fort Worth/Boswell) added two more runs on an RBI double down the left field line to extend the TLU lead to 3-0.
The 3-0 lead would hold until the sixth when Joy ran into her first real jam of the evening. The Tornados started the sixth with back-to-back singles before a free pass loaded the bases with nobody out. Despite loading the bases, Joy was able to work out of the jam, only allowing one run.
The Bulldogs added one final insurance run in the bottom of the inning on a leadoff home run from Bowyer to give TLU a 6-1 lead.
Joy gave way to the 2026 SCAC Pitcher of the Year, Katelyn Howard, in the seventh who made just her fourth relief appearance of the season on Sunday. Howard retired the side in order for her first save of the season. The save was the fourth of Howard's career, moving her into a tie with Samantha Yenne for fourth all-time in program history.
Six Bulldogs registered a hit in the contest with Bowyer and Russell putting up multi-hit contests. Bowyer paced TLU in a 2-for-2, one home run, one RBI, and two runs scored performance while Russell was 2-for-3 with a double and two RBI.
The Bulldogs will meet Ozarks (AR) on Monday for the SCAC Championship, at 1 p.m. after the Eagles worked their way through the elimination bracket with wins over Centenary, No. 18 St. Thomas, and Concordia (TX). The game will be streamed on FloCollege. All streaming and live stats links can be found on tlubulldogs.com.
For more information on Texas Lutheran softball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (@txlutheransoftball), X (Twitter) (@TLUsoftball), and Instagram (@tlu_softball) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on Twitter, @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).
