April 24, 2009, San Antonio, Texas —  The 19th-ranked Tigers began defense of last year's Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference title with a 3-1 win over Trinity in the day's final game.

DePauw, the top seed in the SCAC East Division, improved to 24-7 with its 11th straight win, while the West's number-two seed Trinity dropped to 13-20.

The Tigers face Hendrix, the West's number-three seed, at 2 p.m. CDT on Saturday with the winner advancing to Sunday's championship game. Trinity faces Rhodes in a Noon CDT elimination game tomorrow.

The teams battled through a scoreless three innings before DePauw broke through with one in the fourth. Rachel Gill led off with a single, moved to second on Jen Kosinski's sacrifice bunt and to third on a passed ball. After Ashlee Anton reached on a walk, Kelly Schwerzler drove in Gill after reaching on a fielder's choice.

DePauw added two more in the sixth as Anton reached on an error and Cymone Allen entered as a pinch-runner. Schwerzler reached on a sacrifice bunt and a Trinity throwing error allowed Allen to move to third.

Carolyn Bartlett then reached on the third error of the inning with Allen scoring. Rachel MacBeth's sacrifice bunt moved the runners up one base each before Chelsy Patterson delivered a sacrifice fly to center scoring Schwerzler.

Trinity's lone run came in the top of the seventh as Kate Wright singled with one out and moved to center after an error on the play. Christina Carni's groundout moved Wright to third and Lee Smith followed with an RBI single.

Brianne Weeks led the Tigers with two of their four hits, while five different Trinity players had one hit apiece.

Megan Soultz improved to 21-7 after allowing just one unearned run in seven innings with four strikeouts and no walks. Brittany Losey dropped to 11-9 and allowed three unearned runs in six innings.