Liberty’s softball season came to an end on Saturday, coming up just short of a three-peat, falling to Jacksonville State, 7-4, in the CUSA Softball Championship game. Liberty finishes the year at 29-28 overall and an 18-9 mark in Conference USA play. Meanwhile, the Gamecocks are 45-14 overall after a 24-3 CUSA mark in which they won the regular season title.
This was a rematch from last year’s CUSA Championship Game where Liberty emerged as the winner of the loser’s bracket and defeated Jax State by run rule, 8-0, to secure a second straight CUSA Championship. After winning the regular season series, taking two of three games in Lynchburg in the first conference series of the season, Jacksonville State once again met Liberty in Newark, Delaware in the semifinals on Friday afternoon. The Flames won that game to advance to the winner-take-all championship game on Saturday. Jax State would survive an elimination game Friday night to also reach the championship game where they would get their revenge from a season ago.
It was Liberty riding hot with all the momentum entering Saturday, having won six straight games, including its first three of this week’s tournament. Behind the hot pitching of Camden Anders, Liberty took the early lead. The game was scoreless entering the top of the third when the Flames’ bats finally got going. Ella Fox laced a one-out double before Brynn McManus hit a home run for the second straight day. Savannah Jessee followed with her own home run to put the Flames up 3-0. With the same score in the top of the fourth, Dani Lee began the frame with a double. After moving to third thanks to Brooke Roberts’ sacrifice bunt and Fox walked, Lee was able to score on a double steal attempt, pushing the edge to 4-0.
Anders entered Saturday’s championship having allowed just one earned run in 19 innings pitched at the 2026 CUSA Softball Championship, posting a 3-0 record. Her first 18 innings pitched were all scoreless frames. That hot streak continued into the early part of the championship match, as she held the Gamecocks off the scoreboard through the first three innings including a first inning bases loaded jam she escaped. The tides and momentum would begin to shift in the bottom of the fourth though. Anders walked the first two batters in the inning, followed by a single to load the bases. A third walk of the inning forced a run in, the first of the game for the Gamecocks. Liberty would make a pitching change for the first time of the tournament, going to Abigail Findlay. The first two batters she faced, Findlay issued free passes as the lead quickly shrunk to 4-3. Head coach Dot Richardson went back to Anders in the circle, who would retire the next three batters but not without allowing another run on a sacrifice fly to tie the game at four at the end of four innings.
The Lady Flames would threaten in both the fifth and the sixth but were unable to scratch across a run to regain the lead. After Anders retired the Gamecocks in order in the fifth, JSU struck once again in the home half of the sixth. The Gamecocks got a runner on first with one out after Maci Strickland’s throw from third drew Roberts off the bag. Two batters later and Jax State grabbed the lead on a double before a two-run home run to center made the score 7-4. Liberty would go do win in order in the top of the seventh to finish the game.
It was an up and down season for the Lady Flames who were unable to build off last year’s program best season with a second straight CUSA regular season and tournament title before defeating No. 1 Texas A&M in the regionals and advancing to the program’s first ever Super Regionals. Finishing the regular season with three straight wins at Kennesaw State carried over into the CUSA Tournament where Liberty won its first three games by a combined score of 19-2 before falling short Saturday when the Gamecocks scored seven unanswered to overcome the 4-0 deficit.
