SALEM, Va. - For the third time in the last four seasons the NCAA Division III softball championships have been contested, Virginia Wesleyan University will play for a national title.
Sunday, VWU (44-5-1) shut out DePauw 3-0 at the Division III softball championships to advance to the 2021 national championship series. The Marlins, who won the NCAA title in 2017 and 2018, will face the 2019 champion, Texas Lutheran (35-4), in a best of three series starting Monday at 3 p.m.
There were no NCAA spring championships contested in 2020.
VWU jumped on DePauw, the No. 1 seed early, scoring a pair of runs in the bottom of the first inning when Suffolk's (Nansemond River High School) product Katelyn Biando singled home Virginia Beach's (Ocean Lakes High School) Jessica Goldyn and Virginia Beach's (Ocean Lakes High School) Madison Glaubke. Golden, who broke the NCAA Division III single-season stolen bases record Saturday, homered to give the Marlins a 3-0 lead in the third inning.
DePauw hit a double in the fourth and singled in the fifth leaving both runners on the bases while going three up, three down in the top of the sixth and seventh en route to a Virginia Wesleyan 3-0 victory that advances the two-time National Champions to their third National Title series in the last four regular seasons.
