By Jose Briseno, Castle Country Radio:

The SWAC conference tournament has officially begun as USU Eastern took on Colorado Northwestern at 9:30 this morning. Eastern took care of the Spartans, 12-5, to move onto the next round of the tournament. The Eagles have set up a second-round matchup against the SLCC Bruins.

Madie Luck got the start in the circle for the Eagles and was awarded the win after an outstanding complete-game outing. Madie allowed five runs on eight hits and received substantial help from her offense and defense as the Eagles played a clean game and did not commit an error.

Colorado Northwestern got things started early with two runs in the top of the first inning and Eastern managed one run in the bottom half of the inning to split the Spartan lead in half, 2-1.

Eastern would bounce back in the bottom of the second inning with three runs as Graciee Christiansen hit a two-run home run to give the Eagles a 3-2 lead. Kalsey Lopes would drive in another run in the frame to extend Eastern’s lead to two runs, 4-2.

Madie Luck would start to settle into the game as she retired two straight Spartans to get out of the inning after CNCC put two runners on base via walk. Ally Oyanguren would extend the Eagles’ lead once again with a solo shot over the left field wall to give Eastern a 5-2 lead.

CNCC would tie the game up at five in the top of the fourth after the Spartans scored three runs on a bloop single to left and an eye-seeing single that brought in two more. With the score at 5-5, Eastern would sore three runs in the bottom of the fourth to extend their lead back to three runs, 8-5. Kalsey Lopes hit an RBI single to score Mackenzie Wright from third. Marissa Bowman doubled to move Lopes to third to set up a two-run double by Malorie Luck.

Eastern would add four more runs in the bottom of the fifth to score the final runs of the game. Graciee Christiansen scored on a passed ball to make it 9-5 before Zoey Rose scored Mackenzie Wright on an RBI double. Rose would score on a sacrifice fly hit by Kalsey Lopes to give the Eagles a 11-5 lead. Marissa Bowman hit a no-doubt solo bomb to score Eastern’s 12th and final run of the game.

With the win, Eastern advances to play SLCC at 2:30 pm this afternoon for a chance to play in the conference semi-finals. Eastern went 2-6 this season against the Bruins in conference play with many games being tightly contested. The game can be found on the SWAC Network streaming service.