DES MOINES, Iowa – The Drake University softball team defeated Evansville, 7-2, Saturday, May 4 afternoon in the regular season finale and on the team's senior day at Buel Field.
 
Drake (40-14, 24-2 MVC) earned its second-straight 40-win season and matched last year's program-record for Missouri Valley Conference victories with 24. The Bulldogs head to Peoria, Ill. for next week's MVC Tournament as the No. 1 seed and defending tournament champions. They are scheduled to play their first tournament game Friday at 11 a.m. in the first semifinal contest.
 
Drake used a six-run second-inning to grab control of the game. Evansville (19-29, 9-16 MVC) collected their first hit of the series with a fourth-inning leadoff double by Eryn Gould off Nicole Newman (Madison, Wis.). Newman, who pitched 5.2 innings and allowed just one hit and one walk, exited to a standing ovation with two outs in the sixth inning. She improved to 26-6 on the season, and is now just two wins away from the top single season victory mark in school history.  
 
Nicole Timmons (Davenport, Iowa) took over in the circle and allowed a two-run home run to Haley Woolf on the first pitch as the Purple Aces' scored their first runs of the three-game series. Timmons settled in after the home run and got the final four outs and even collected her first career hit, leading off the seventh for the Bulldogs and smoking a rope to left field.
 
It was senior day for Kennedy Frank (Chesterfield, Mo.), Gabbie Jonas (Omaha, Neb.), Newman, Taryn Pena (Columbia, Ill.) and Melissa Schlotzhauer (Pilot Grove, Mo.) as the five played their final home games at Buel Field. Frank and Pena each had one double. Pena's is the 40^th in her career and she is tied for No. 3 all-time with 40. She drove in two runs and passed Dani Tyler (1993-95) for No. 2 all-time in career RBI in school history with 116. Frank drove in one run with a second-inning bases loaded walk that also gave her the new school record in career walks at 112 and later she added one more walk for 113. Jonas added 10 putouts to her career program-leading total and has 1,285. Schlotzhauer drove in a run with a fielder's choice.
 
Sarah Maddox (Henderson, Nev.) drove in two runs with a single in the fifth while Macy Johnson (Winterset, Iowa) just missed her first home run of the season crushing a triple off the wall in the fifth that scored Mandi Roemmich (West Des Moines, Iowa). Roemmich scored two runs and is now tied for No. 7 with 109 in her career.