The University of Redlands and Trine University will play for the NCAA Division III softball national championship today, June 3rd, at the James I. Moyer Complex in Salem.
Redland, from California, and Trine, from Indiana won their respective four-team pods and were set to play a best-of-three series beginning on Tuesday. The second game is set for 11 am today, and if the same team wins that team is championship. However, if the team that lost Tuesday wins the 11 am game today then one more game will be needed to determine the champion.
Redlands is 45-6 on the season after defeating Simpson on Sunday morning at the Moyer Complex. Trine will make their second consecutive trip to the final, and fourth in the past five years, after defeating Belhaven, 5-2, on Sunday. Trine is 41-6.
Virginia Wesleyan of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference was 50-0 coming into the tournament but lost their first two games and were eliminated. The Marlins lost the first game of the tournament, on Thursday morning to Rowan of New Jersey, 3-2. Virginia Wesleyan didn’t have a hit until the sixth inning, then rallied for two in the bottom of the seventh but left the tying run on base. VWU was then eliminated by Linfield University of Oregon, also by a score of 3-2.