SEMO’s season ends in Fayetteville

The SEMO softball team’s season ended on Saturday in a 4-1 loss to the Villanova Wildcats in an elimination game in the NCAA Regional in Fayetteville, AR.

The seven-time Ohio Valley Conference Tournament Champion Redhawks made the NCAA Regional for the third time.

The Redhawks struck first against Villanova with a Kynzie Wrigley double in the second inning and Marissa Peek came around to score for the 1-0 SEMO lead. The Wildcats put up three runs in the bottom of the second and never looked back, adding one more in the third.

SEMO ended an impressive 2024 campaign with the 16th toughest non-conference schedule and knocked off #10 Missouri in Columbia, and added another Power 5 win over Maryland. At one point the Redhawks were 12-20 before finishing the last 22 games 16-6. SEMO earned the #2 seed in the OVC Tournament with a 19-8 conference record and went 3-0 to win the tournament.

Six Redhawks made All-OVC teams, OVC Tournament MVP Paige Halliwill and Marissa Peak were named First Team All-OVC, Abigail Rickermann, Paytience Holman and Aubrie Shore were named Second Team All-OVC and Maddie Carney was named to the All-OVC Newcomer Team.

SEMO also has to say goodbye to their seven seniors who have been so vital to the program, Halliwill, Rickermann, Holman, Peek, Wrigley, Zoe Schulte and Kat Sackett.

Head coach Mark Redburn said despite the two losses he is proud of how his team played in the Regional.

“I'm proud of them, we've been talking about it and we knew it was gonna be a big environment, I thought that they handled it really well. We didn't commit any errors, we hit a couple of really good balls and we made some great defensive plays,” Redburn said. “I thought we came out and we did exactly what we wanted to do. We played on the big stage and they battled and competed, unfortunately, this time right here we just fell a little short.”