For the fifth time in seven seasons, Longwood University’s softball team is the Big South Conference champion with a ticket to the NCAA Tournament, a Longwood athletics press release announced triumphantly Saturday afternoon.

Officials noted in the release that a complete game three-hitter from sophomore Sydney Backstrom and a go-ahead suicide squeeze bunt laid down by senior Jessica Smith in the bottom of the sixth inning sent the No. 1-seed Lancers to a 3-2 win over No. 4-seed Winthrop University (30-26) in the Big South Championship game Saturday afternoon at Amanda Littlejohn Stadium in Buies Creek, North Carolina.

In a separate release Sunday, it was announced that the Lancers (37-20) were selected as the No. 4 seed in the Knoxville Regional and will open the NCAA Tournament against the national No. 12 seed University of Tennessee on Friday at 1:30 p.m., with the game to be broadcast on ESPN3. It marks Longwood’s fourth trip to face the Volunteers in Knoxville after trips from the 2013, 2015 and 2017 squads.

The Saturday release stated that the Big South Tournament title game win came in comeback fashion for the Big South regular-season champion Lancers, who scored three runs in the bottom of the sixth to overcome a 2-0 deficit. All-Big South freshman Sydney Jacobsen scored the go-ahead run after drawing a walk, stealing second and advancing to third on a throwing error on the same play.

“Today was a range of emotion,” Longwood Head Coach Kathy Riley said in the release. “It was 14 hard-fought innings. I was just happy to see that last out.”

Smith placed a one-out bunt down the first base line to send in a charging Jacobsen, who was sent from the third base box by Riley, the Big South Coach of the Year, and scored uncontested with a feet-first slide, the release cited.

“We seem to get stronger in the late innings and when we get tested,” Riley said in the release. “We’ve done that quite a bit throughout the season and today was no different. We did a good job of putting together strong at-bats in the sixth innings.”

Officials stated in the release that Backstrom (19-10), whose lone blemish on the day came on a two-run home run by Winthrop senior Keleigh Romine in the top of the fifth, then locked up the win by working around a two-out walk in the top of the seventh to complete her three-hit masterpiece.

The championship win was a redemptive effort that saw the Lancers avenge a 4-3 loss to Winthrop in the first game of the day, the release highlighted. It was the first loss of the double-elimination tournament for the Lancers, who had defeated Winthrop and No. 2 University of South Carolina (USC) Upstate earlier in the event. The upset-minded Eagles — who knocked off No. 2 USC Upstate on Friday to reach the championship game — put Longwood in a winner-take-all title game Saturday afternoon after a seventh-inning go-ahead double by senior Brooke Ellison led them to a game-one upset Saturday morning.

“Our team has a lot of fight, and it doesn’t matter to us how we win, but we’re not ever going to go down without a fight,” Longwood redshirt senior first baseman Karleigh Donovan said in the release. “Preparation was key for this week, and we worked our tails off. I couldn’t be happier for our team.”

Donovan, who had both Longwood hits on the day with a 2-for-3 performance, was named Big South Tournament Most Valuable Player (MVP), joining Lancers two-time tournament MVP Libby Morris, in 2013 and 2015, senior Sydney Gay, in 2016, and Elizabeth McCarthy, in 2017, officials cited in the release. Donovan was joined on the All-Tournament team by teammates Backstrom, senior Kaylynn “Bug” Batten and senior Jordan Clark.

“Sometimes you can see Karleigh get locked in just by looking at her,” Riley said in the release. “She was ready to put together good at-bats, and she didn’t let any pitch bother her. She had a sense of determination in each at-bat that she took, and good things happen because of that.”

The release stated that Donovan went 8-for-12 at the plate across the Lancers’ four games in the tournament, with three multi-hit games as she added two RBIs and three runs scored while hitting .667 overall. The senior provided both of Longwood’s hits in the decisive game.

Longwood’s run of five Big South crowns in seven seasons is now one that has never been matched by any league counterpart, officials said in the release. With the Lancers also earning the title of the 2019 Big South regular season champions, the title sweep is the latest accolade in a three-year run that has seen Longwood win every conference series since the 2017 season.

The Saturday release concluded by noting that the NCAA Tournament berth is the fourth in the past five years for the Lancers, who have advanced to the NCAA Regional Championship game in each of their last two appearances.

“We’ve come so close to making a Super Regional before,” Donovan said in the release. “We’ve made it to two regional championships, but we’re going for it this year.”