BATON ROUGE, La. – The two-time reigning Southland Conference Tournament champion Southeastern Louisiana University softball team's historic season ended with an 8-0 loss to No. 19 Nebraska in the championship game of the NCAA Baton Rouge Regional Sunday afternoon at Tiger Park.
The loss ended a historic campaign for SLU (50-16), which advanced to a regional final for the second straight season. Nebraska (42-13) moves on to face No. 7 seed Tennessee in the best-of-three NCAA Super Regionals next week.
Southeastern is just the fourth Southland Conference team to reach the 50-win mark in a season, joining Nicholls in 1994 (52-17) and 1995 (56-9), as well as former league member Texas State in 2001 (54-12). On the way to the win total, SLU set new single-season school records for runs, hits, triples, RBI, walks and shutouts, while also leading Division I in stolen bases.
"You never want the season to end and this has been a magical season," Southeastern head coach
Rick Fremin said. "For this group to reach 50 wins, take down a top-10 team twice at their place and reach Championship Sunday for the second straight season after replacing 12 seniors from last year's team is a testament to the special culture within our program. We'd like to thank LSU for being a great host. Nebraska is a phenomenal team and we wish them the best of luck as they move on to the Super Regionals."
Nebraska jumped out to an early lead in the bottom of the first inning. Solo home runs by national Player of the Year finalist Jordy Bahl and Ava Kuszak chased SLU ace
Macie LaRue (19-3) from the contest.
Lainee Bailey was able to come in and keep Southeastern within, 2-0.
The Huskers doubled their lead in the bottom of the second. Samantha Bland laced a double just inside the left field line to score a pair and put Nebraska up, 4-0.
The Huskers added to their lead in the bottom of the fourth inning. Bland singled home the inning's first two runs. Later in the frame, Bland scored on a sacrifice fly by Kuszak to make it 7-0.
Bahl (25-6), one of four players in NCAA history with 20 home runs and 20 wins in the same season, retired the first 13 Lady Lions she faced, before
Brilee Ford beat out an infield single in the top of the fifth inning. Bahl recovered to retire the next two SLU batters to keep Southeastern off the board.
Nebraska ended the game in the bottom of the sixth inning. Kuszak singled home the game-winning run to enforce the mercy rule.
One of seven Division I teams to win 40 or more games each of the past four seasons (2022-25), Southeastern will be poised to continue its run of success under Fremin. All four first-team All-Southland Conference selections, five members of the pitching staff and eight positional starters from this season's history-making roster will have eligibility remaining for the 2026 season.
2025 NCAA Baton Rouge Regional | May 16-18 | Tiger Park
Friday, May 16
Game 1 – No. 19 Nebraska 10, UConn 2 (6 Innings)
Game 2 – Southeastern 4, No. 10 LSU 3
Saturday, May 17
Game 3 – No. 19 Nebraska 14, Southeastern 1 (5 Innings)
Game 4 – No. 10 LSU 3, UConn 3 (UConn eliminated)
Game 5 – Southeastern 8, No. 10 LSU 7 (LSU eliminated)
Sunday, May 18
Game 6 – No. 19 Nebraska 8, Southeastern 0 (6 Innings)
SOCIAL MEDIA
For more information on Southeastern Softball, follow @LionUpSoftball on X and Instagram, like /SLUathletics on Facebook.
HOME RUN CLUB / S CLUB
Fans interested in becoming active supporters of the softball program are encouraged to join the Home Run Club. Lady Lion softball alums are encouraged to join the exclusive S Club, which is restricted to Southeastern athletic letter winners.
All membership fees and donations to both the Home Run Club and S Club (softball) are available for the exclusive use of the Southeastern softball program. Membership information is available by contacting the Lion Athletics Association at laa@southeastern.edu or (985) 549-5091 or visiting www.LionUp.com.
TICKETS
For ticket information, please contact the Southeastern Athletics Ticket Office at (985) 549-5466 or visit
www.LionSports.net/tickets. Southeastern offers mobile ticketing as the primary source for securing tickets. All tickets will be available via e-mail in a PDF format for fans to download on their phone or print at home. Tickets can also be downloaded to Apple Wallet.
CLEAR BAG POLICY
Southeastern Athletics has a clear bag policy for all ticketed events. For more information on the clear bag policy, visit
www.LionSports.net/clear.
