MURRAY —Murray State’s softball program entered this past weekend’s series with Bradley in a seemingly advantageous position.

Positioned in fifth place in Missouri Valley Conference, the Racers were looking to close ground on fourth-place Northern Iowa, while playing the 10th-place team. Seemed to be a simple task … until it wasn’t.

Bradley came to play at Racer Field, winning the first game Friday afternoon and holding a two-run lead in the sixth inning of Saturday’s rubber match with a starting pitcher who seemed to have the Racers’ number. Then, everything changed.

A bloop single that barely cleared the infield tied the game. An incredible catch in the outfield saved two runs in the eighth and a final burst of offense put the Racers over the top in a thrilling 4-3 extra-innings win that gave Murray State the series win, tightened its grip on fifth place and brought lots of smiles from Head Coach Kara Amundson’s team.

“Yes, it’s a beautiful sight. We like those smiles a lot more than the frowns, which we had a lot of earlier in the day,” said Amundson, whose team climbed to 9-7 in Valley play, 18-19 overall. This is the first time since 2023, the Racers’ first in The Valley, have been above .500 in league play this late in the season.

For the Racers to earn this win, they had to solve tricky Bradley right-handed starter Abby Rusher, who had no-hit them for six innings in Friday’s 5-3 win for the Braves (5-11 and ninth in Valley play, 11-27 overall) before the Racers split the day with a 10-0 run-rule knockout win in five innings against a different hurler. Saturday, she was again a problem, holding Murray State to one run through five innings. 

In the sixth, though, after teammate Ashley Breeding seemed to have landed a fatal blow to the host team with a long solo home run over the left-field fence for a 3-1 lead, the Racers responded. Bailey Broemmer’s short fly ball to t right field with two outs landed between three fielders, bringing home both runners on base to tie the game. 

However, Broemmer was only beginning to affect this game and what she did in the eighth has become a norm.

With runners at second and third and two outs in the eighth, she was able to track a hard liner to the left-center gap from Bradley’s Hilary Wilson and, in a style that has become familiar to Racer Nation, snagged it on a highlight-reel diving catch to save two runs. 

“Oh my gosh! She’s wild,” Amundson said. “A game-saving play and she’s done that more than once since she’s been here, but she’s always ready for the moment, every single time.”

“I knew I had it,” the senior center fielder said of her catch that came after she dashed about 10 strides before leaping and stabbing the ball with a backhanded catch. “I practice it a lot. I don’t know. I just close my eyes and hope, but I was confident.

“It’s just being quick and reading it off the bat.”

Broemmer was fourth in the batting order in the Racers’ half of the eighth, but it would be left to the player immediately in front of her to end the game. After Parker Holcombe’s line drive barely inside the left-field line resulted in a one-out double, the reigning Valley Player of the Week justified that acclaim. And after fouling off four pitches, Kenley Minor won the battle with Rusher on a clean liner to left that scored Holcombe, who scored her second run on a day she was 4-for-4 at the plate.

“Throughout this weekend, I’ve been really anxious at the plate, so I just wanted to calm down and take a breath before each pitch,” said Minor, whose hard grounder on her last at-bat did end in a frustrating groundout right to the first baseman but showed she was measuring Rusher. That shot, narrowly missing a possible tying hit down the right-field line, immediately preceded Broemmer’s blooper that did tie the game.

“After that, it was see ball, hit ball. Make sure I make contact and make my mechanics do the work.”

Holcombe’s first-inning single gave the Racers a 1-0 lead but Bradley tied the game in the third, then took the lead in the fourth. Through four innings, Rusher had limited the Racers to only three hits but they were able to solve her the rest of the way, collecting seven of their 10 hits in the final four frames.

Friday, Ava Ozment’s grand slam and Calloway County product Adison Hicks’ two-run blast highlighted Game 2.