Gophers defeat Northwestern 9-6 for third straight Big Ten softball title

May 14, 2018 at 12:33PM
Teammates celebrated with Minnesota infielder Makenna Partain (3) after Partain's grand slam against Wisconsin in a game last month.
Teammates celebrated with Minnesota infielder Makenna Partain (3) after Partain's grand slam against Wisconsin in a game last month. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Minnesota jumped to a 6-0 lead in the second inning and held on to defeat Northwestern 9-6 Sunday in Madison, Wis., to win its third consecutive Big Ten softball title.

The regional matchups for the NCAA tournament will be announced tonight at 9 p.m. on ESPN2.

Dani Wagner hit a two-homer for the Gophers to cap a four-run first inning and Allie Arneson added a two-run homer in the third to give Minnesota an 8-3 lead.

The Gophers (39-15) have won 22 of their last 24 games. Before that surge, they had lost two of three games to Northwestern in Big Ten play.

A box score and play-by-play from the game, which was delayed from Saturday night by bad weather, are here.

You can read more about the Gophers' regular season here.

The Gophers beat No. 3-seed Indiana in the semifinals. You can get the play-by-play and statistics from that game here.

Tweets from @GopherSoftball are here.

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Carlos Gonzalez/The Minnesota Star Tribune

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