PRESCOTT, Ariz. — The Goshen College softball team claimed the mythical championship of the Copper State Classic this weekend, going 4-1 in five games to post the best record among the six schools at the event.

GC, which improved to 6-7 for the season at the end of the event, started the weekend with three wins on Saturday, knocking off Ottawa University-Arizona in a pair of games before extinguishing Arizona Christian in extra innings: the tripleheader sweep marked the first time in Maple Leaf history that the team had recorded three wins in a day.

Head coach Kristen Kolter's team went to extra innings with Antelope Valley to start Sunday's action, dropping a 12-7 decision in eight frames after each team started the eighth with a runner on second per tournament regulations. GC bounced back to run-rule Benedictine-Mesa in the nightcap: UAV's game against host Embry-Riddle was canceled, denying the Pioneers a chance to match Goshen's record.

Katherine Boyer and Brianna Sherman posted matching .471 averages to pace the Maple Leafs. Boyer's line included three doubles and a home run while Sherman and Sandra Rodriguez each recorded twin doubles. Rodriguez and Candace Sutter each scored five times while Rianna Koteles blasted two home runs and drove in eight runners.

Alexis Carpenter led the team in the circle, throwing 16 1/3 innings across three starts while winning two and going the distance in one. She struck out 11 batters, walking two and allowing less than one hit per inning. Rayna Moraga and Leah Herrman both held their opponents under .205 at the plate while posting complete-game wins.

While the Maple Leafs were scheduled for an off day Monday, Mother Nature had other plans. Despite being at a similar latitude as Los Angeles, Prescott sits more than 5,000 feet above sea level; snow is in the forecast for Tuesday, when Goshen was slated to face Embry-Riddle. The teams moved their doubleheader forward a day, with the Eagles posting a pair of comeback wins.

SATURDAY: Goshen 9, Ottawa 0 (6 innings) – Box Score

Herrman held the Spirit hitless until the fifth inning, by which point GC had eight hits on its way to a mercy-rule win. After neither team scored in the first three innings, Rodriguez led off the fourth inning with a double to deep right field; Ottawa got a pop-up for the first out before the next five Maple Leafs either reached base or recorded a sacrifice fly.

Goshen's last four runs were all unearned, scoring after two were out in the sixth inning and after Allison White reached on a dropped fly ball. Sherman scored on a Koteles groundout to make the score 6-0; back-to-back singles from Sutter and Rodriguez then prefaced a Boyer double, which took Goshen's lead to the eight runs required for the mercy rule. Rodriguez added an insurance run with two outs on a throwing error.

A quartet of Leafs hit safely twice, with Boyer and Rodriguez counting two-baggers among their two hits. Neither team drew a walk in the game and Herrman scattered four hits.

SATURDAY: Goshen 4, Ottawa 1 – Box Score

Once again, neither team scored through the first three innings, although a pair of singles on both sides negated any talk of a no-hitter. Boyer's leadoff double in the fourth inning started the Maple Leaf rally, which continued with a walk, a single and a fielding error before Moraga's three-run homer staked the Maple Leafs to a 4-0 lead.

Doubling as the game's starter, Moraga had given herself all the offense she needed, posting the team's second straight complete-game four-hitter. The Spirit's run came in the sixth inning, when the bases were loaded after three batters to bring the tying run to the plate. Savannah Brown hit an infield ground ball, although one run would score on a throwing error, before a flyout and a double play grounder got the Maple Leafs out of the inning with a three-run lead.

Sherman posted Goshen's only two-hit game; the team's other five hits came from five different players, four of whom scored.

SATURDAY: Goshen 6, Arizona Christian 5 (8 innings) – Box Score

Arizona Christian put GC behind for the first time on the weekend on a one-out Taylor Babbitt double in the top of the fourth inning, adding insurance runs on a groundout and a fielding error in the seventh to put the travelers down three runs with three outs left.

Those three outs became two with a leadoff popout before Sutter and Rodriguez reached to bring Boyer to the plate as the tying run. A double scored Sutter to pull GC within 3-1, moving the tying run into scoring position for Sherman's game-tying hit two batters later. Both Firestorm hits in the top of the eighth scored runs, putting ACU up 5-3 but setting the stage for a walkoff win.

White's leadoff double knocked in Crapser, the runner who started at second, before White moved up 60 feet on a sacrifice bunt and tied the game on a Koteles single. After a groundout moved Koteles into scoring position, Rodriguez sent the GC faithful home happy with a single to right-center.

Sherman finished 4-for-4 at the plate with two runs driven in, the only player on the team with multiple RBI. Rodriguez, White and Boyer worked two hits each; Rodriguez added a free pass while the other two players sported doubles on their records. Carpenter allowed three earned runs in eight innings for the win, throwing 104 pitches and keeping the ball in the infield: no GC outfielder recorded a putout until extra innings.

"Our energy level was awesome," head coach Kristen Kolter said after Saturday's games. "Our pitchers did a phenomenal job today as part of an all-around outstanding effort! We did a great job executing our bunt game, moving runners into scoring position and coming up with clutch hits when needed."

The third game of the day also marked a milestone in Kolter's GC career: it was her 193rd game as Maple Leaf head coach, making her the second-most-experienced boss in program history. Dawn Austin holds the record with 241 games.

SUNDAY: Antelope Valley 12, Goshen 7 (8 innings) – Box Score

In a high-scoring basketball game, you might hear that the team with the ball last will win. Sunday's lid-lifter, similarly, saw two teams lock horns with a pair of multi-run comebacks and the team with the last run winning. Unfortunately for the Maple Leafs, that team was Antelope Valley, which overcame a 7-5 Goshen lead after six.

The Pioneers also scored first, using a three-run jack from Sabrina Mansfield to chase Carpenter. The purple and white side got two runs back on Koteles' maiden dinger of the year in the bottom of the inning, but UAV responded with another homer in the fourth and led 5-2 at the midpoint of regulation.

Goshen leveled the score in the fifth after Crapser and Moraga each reached base to start the inning; Rodriguez did the honors by clearing the left-field fence with two away and the runners shifted into scoring position. A Crapser groundout in the sixth put GC up 6-5 after Sherman's leadoff double and a Moraga two-bagger scored White for the insurance tally.

Antelope Valley equalized in the seventh inning: the RBI groundout and wild pitch added insult to injury as both runners had reached on fielding errors earlier in the frame. Goshen got the winning run to third base in the person of Sutter with one out in the bottom of the inning, but a fielder's choice and a strikeout sent the game past its slated end.

The Pioneers took the lead for good four pitches into the extra frame on a 2-run shot by Amber Adkins; a walk and three doubles set the final margin.

Eight of Goshen's nine offensive starters reached base with two hits each from Rodriguez and Moraga. Brooke Maes drew a pair of free passes while each of the bottom five hitters in the order scored.

SUNDAY: Goshen 9, Benedictine-Mesa 1 (6 innings) – Box Score

Goshen ended the classic much the way it started it, allowing one hit in the first four innings and scoring the first nine runs of the finale. Sutter smacked three hits and stole four bases while Boyer went 2-for-2 with a homer and three runs knocked in; Koteles, who also had two hits and went yard, knocked in four.

Carpenter allowed three hits and a walk in six innings, firing 79 pitches. Her ninth career win moved her into a tie for seventh place in school history after transferring from Muskegon Community College before the 2017 campaign.

GC recorded a single run in the first inning, when Maes squeezed in Sutter after a leadoff single, and another on a Koteles double in the second. The bulk of the damage came later, though, with Boyer's two-run homer three batters into the fifth and Koteles' three-run shot at the same point in the sixth. Rodriguez and Boyer each recorded run-scoring hits as well, which proved significant as the Maple Leafs still triggered the run rule despite a Redhawk run in the sixth.

MONDAY: Embry-Riddle 7, Goshen 6 – Box Score

Boyer and Koteles each homered in the first inning, staking Carpenter to a 3-run lead before she ever took the circle, before Goshen added an insurance run without a hit in the second inning. The Eagles added single unearned scores in each of the first two innings, giving the Leafs a 4-2 lead after six outs each.

Daisy Hatcher-Taylor's two-run double in the trimmed the advantage to 5-4 at the end of five innings, cutting the lead even after Rodriguez scored an unearned run in the top of the frame. White's one-out double redoubled Goshen's lead in the sixth before a two-run, one-out double by Embry-Riddle second sacker Haley Basye put the Eagles up for good in the bottom of the inning.

With a one-run deficit, Goshen brought the tying run up to lead off the seventh. Boyer delivered with a single through the box. After a popout, she moved to second when Moraga reached on a fielding error. The pair of baserunners put the go-ahead run at first, but a fielder's choice and a strikeout ended the game.

Boyer and Koteles each hit safely twice and drove in two runs; eight of the game's 13 runs were unearned as the teams combined for 12 errors. Hatcher-Taylor, Basye and Zoe Streadbeck each reached twice for ERAU, which got a complete-game win from Carly Carlsen.

MONDAY: Embry-Riddle 11, Goshen 8 – Box Score

Candace Sutter's leadoff single set the stage for another Koteles homer to put GC up 2-0 after half an inning. Embry-Riddle's offense stole the show for the next few innings, though, scoring 11 of the next 12 runs.

The Maple Leafs began to mount a comeback in the fifth, using three straight hits culminating in a Herrman 3-run jack to stave off the run rule and pull within 11-6 after five innings. Carpenter retired ERAU in order in the fifth, part of a perfect 2 1/3 innings of relief.

After a leadoff lineout, Goshen threatened again in the sixth inning. Sutter reached base on an error; she came in to score two batters later for an 11-7 margin. When Koteles walked, the Maple Leafs had loaded the bases; a wild pitch brought in Taylor Sutliff and a free pass to Herrman brought the go-ahead run to the plate two innings after ERAU held an eight-run lead.

The Eagles would laugh last, though, getting a pair of ground-ball fielder's choices to end the inning; in the seventh, White drew a one-out walk but the tying run never got past the on-deck circle.

Twenty-three combined hits, seven walks and 290 pitches peppered a nightcap that ran more than two hours and 20 minutes. Koteles reached base thrice in four trips for GC while joining Sutliff and Boyer with two hits each. Herrman followed her homer with two walks, also reaching three times, while Courtney Crapser contributed a single and two sacrifices.

Embry-Riddle got three hits, three runs and three RBIs from Hannah DeLuna, who recorded a double and a home run; Kaila Romero's double and single also produced two runs scored and driven in.

Next up: After Tuesday's snow day, the Maple Leafs close out their Arizona trip with a pair of doubleheaders later in the week. GC faces Arizona Christian on Wednesday at 6 p.m. EST (4 p.m. local time) at the Rose Mofford Sports Complex in Phoenix; on Thursday, the team faces Benedictine-Mesa at 3 p.m. EST (1 p.m. local time) at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Chandler.