The No. 3 seeded Trine Thunder advanced to the NCAA Division III Softball Championship semifinals following their 5-1 victory over the No. 2 seed Rowan Profs on Friday, May 30, at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Ill.

Rowan defeated Trine in the 2023 Softball Championship 11-4 before they eventually went on to win the national championship. In 2025, the opposite happened, and now Rowan will look to keep the same script and come out on top in the end. 

Early on, Trine got hit with an immediate taste of the Rowan softball offense with Liz McCaffery’s leadoff home run to start the game. The Profs second basemen has homered in back-to-back games to start the NCAA Division III Softball Championship.

This is the first time these teams have matched up in two years. Trine head coach Donnie Danklefsen immediately thought back to that game following Rowan’s leadoff home run.

“After the home run, I was like ‘Oh god here we go again’ and then we settled in,” Danklefsen said. “Just the chance to play them again and see how well we stacked up against them this year was a great opportunity. It’s just nice to be on the right side and keep moving forward in the bracket.”

In the bottom of the first, Trine scored their first run off an error on a fly ball hit to center field. The wind carried the ball into right-center field, giving issues to Rowan’s defense. A rare error from the Profs allowed the inning to continue and Trine would score another run on an RBI single from Macy Rocha. 

Rocha’s next at-bat in the third inning would be a two-out solo home run to put the Thunder up 3-1. Rowan’s starting pitcher Emily McCutcheon would exit following the home run, going 2.2 IP with just one earned run allowed.

Rowan would go to reliever BethAnne Doderer for the rest of the contest. The freshman pitched in her first-ever Division III NCAA Tournament game and got some advice from Rowan’s leaders.

“Bre [Bryant] specifically, she just said just throw the ball. That was it,” Doderer said. “Do what we’ve been working towards all season and what Coach MP [Mary Murray] has trained me to do. Don’t make it any more than it needs to be.”

Doderer went 3.1 innings and allowed two runs in the fifth inning off a two-run home run from Tyra Marcum. Marcum’s homer put the game out of reach for the Profs, pushing Trine’s lead to 5-1.

The Thunder’s starter, Alexis Michon, went the complete game allowing just three hits and one earned run. She struck out 10 hitters en route to her 21st win and 19th complete game of the season. 

“Trusting my spin and allowing myself to clip the corners and not just pipe it down the middle, that was definitely working,” Michon said. “Obviously my change-up was a big factor to the strikeouts but I also give a lot of credit to Ainsley [Phillips] because she is a very good catcher. She frames any ball off the plate. I get a lot of strike calls because of her, so it’s a dual effort.”

McCaffery, who started the game hot with the home run, talked about the approach and result from facing Michon.

“We definitely had a gameplan going in and kind of stepped away from that,” McCaffery said. “Usually, we can make adjustments the second or third time around and we really didn’t today. She kept us off balance and then took advantage of the weaknesses. Once they got the momentum going, it never really stopped.”

As Trine awaits their opponent, the Rowan Profs will square off against the Randolph-Macon Yellow Jackets for a chance to reach the semifinals. The Profs have been in this spot for the last two years. In 2023, they lost this exact game. In 2024, they won the game. Rowan is looking for a result similar to last year’s.

“I think my upperclassmen will do a really good job of getting ready to go and provide the leadership that they’ve been providing all year,” Rowan head coach Kim Wilson said. “It doesn’t just come from the seniors, it comes from everybody. We are a bounceback kind of team. We’ve done a good job of turning the next page. That’s done. We can learn from it[the loss] and move forward.”

Rowan will see a familiar face as first-year head coach for the Yellow Jackets in Krysti Maronski-Neufeldt, who once played in a Rowan softball uniform under Wilson and was dominant. She finished her career as Rowan’s all-time leader in ERA (0.93), single-season strikeouts (259), and single-game strikeouts (16). Wilson talked about the emotions she’s feeling going up against her former player.

“I’m so proud of Krysti and the coach that she is and the human being that she is,” Wilson said. “I think that she’s done such a good job. I’m so proud of her.”

The game will start at 12 p.m. EST and 11 a.m. CT on Saturday, May 31. The winner of that game will have to beat No. 1 seed Virginia Wesleyan twice on Sunday to advance to the final round.

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