HARTFORD, Conn. - The Trinity College softball team, which finished the 2023 regular season with an 13-19 record and in sixth place in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) with an 8-10 mark against conference opponents, has qualified for the league championship tournament for the 12th time. The Bantams, led by Head Coach Mackenzie Keyes (1st Season), made the post-season in dramatic fashion.  Trinity needed four wins in four games over the weekend to qualify and swept both Bates and Middlebury at home on Saturday and Sunday to earn the No. 6 seed.  The Bantams begin the post-season on Saturday, May 13 against No. 3-seeded Williams College in the opening round of the NESCAC Championship Tournament at noon at host Tufts University.  Trinity downed the Ephs, 8-4, in last year's quarterfinal round, also held at Tufts. 

The top eight teams in the NESCAC qualify for the league tournament and will play a single-elimination format. The top-seeded Jumbos play No. 8-seeded Middlebury on Friday, May 12 at 2:30 p.m. and No. 2-seeded Amherst faces No. 7-seeded Bates the same day at 5 p.m.  Trinity and Williams play in the second game of the day on Saturday, following the 9:30 a.m. contest between No. 4-seeded Colby and No. 5-seeded Bowdoin.  The semifinals will take place on Saturday at 2:30 and 5 p.m. and the finals will be Sunday, May 14 at 11 a.m.  The tournament champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Championship.  Trinity, making its sixth straight tournament appearance, is 3-6 against all-time in the tournament and Coach Keyes was an assistant at Williams from 2017 to 2022.  Trinity lost twice at Williams during the regular season, 7-0, and, 8-4.

Offensively, Trinity sophomore SS Taylor Mikolajczak (Johns Creek, Ga.) leads the Bantams with 42 hits in 109 at-bats for a .385 average to go with a team-high 26 runs, three home runs and a NESCAC-best 18 stolen bases.  Junior 1B Kennedy Rogers (Pomona, Calif.) is batting .330 with a .540 slugging percentage, 15 runs, 12 doubles (3rd in NESCAC), three home runs and a team-high 28 RBIs (8th in NESCAC), while junior IF Gianna Tito (East Hanover, N.J.) adds 22 runs, nine extra-base hits, and 14 RBIs with a .317 batting average (32-101). Senior co-captain Alyssa Gazivoda (Poughquag, N.Y.) has provided steady defense and a potent bat behind the plate with a .284 batting average and 18 RBIs and junior Tiffany Stowers (Burke, Va.) is hitting .276 with 13 RBIs.  In the circle, Stowers has established herself as a legitimate ace with an 11-9 record (3rd in NESCAC in wins) and a 3.29 ERA (8th in NESCAC) and 45 strikeouts in 25 appearances (2nd in NESCAC) and over 100 innings of work.