FAIRBORN, Ohio – Youngstown State scored two runs in the seventh inning to rally for a 3-2 victory over Cleveland State in the opening round of the Horizon League Softball Championship on Wednesday afternoon at Wright State.

The Vikings, who fell to 24-19 this season, will now play an elimination game at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday against the loser of this afternoon's contest between third-seeded Valparaiso and second-seeded Wright State.

YSU advances to play top-seeded Green Bay at 6:30 p.m. this evening.

The Vikings struck first in the top of the first as Nena Doran blooped a single down the right field line and moved to second on Hannah Yoe's sacrifice bunt. After the second out of the inning, Erica McNew, who earlier in the day was named to the all-league first team for the second straight year, drove in Doran with a double to right center field.

The Penguins battled back to tie the contest at 1-1 with an unearned run in the second inning, but the Vikings came back with a run in the fourth inning to regain a 2-1 lead.

McNew drew a leadoff walk and after stealing second base, she moved to third on a sacrifice bunt from Alyson Broschk. McNew would come in to score on Katelind Phillips' RBI double to the left field wall.

It was all Susan Knight from there, as she retired 10 of 11 batters from the third out of the third inning to the sixth inning. However, back-to-back singles and a walk loaded the bases for YSU in the seventh and Sarah Dowd hit a two-run walk-off single up the middle for the Penguins.

Four CSU players had one hit apiece – Doran, McNew, Phillips and Alisha Silva – while the Penguins were limited to six hits in a game that took just one hour and 33 minutes to play.

Knight gave up two earned runs and struck out three, while Casey Crozier fanned seven for YSU to earn the win.