SAINT LEO, Fla. – The No. 7 ranked AUM softball team defeated No. 13 Saint Leo, 8-1, to win the 2025 NCAA Division II Softball South Region 2 Championship at Mary Canon Cabot Field on Saturday.
 
AUM improved to 40-11 on the season, while SLU fell to 40-14 and saw its season end with a loss to the Warhawks in the regional for the third-consecutive year.
 
The third-seeded Warhawks now advance to the Super Regional round where they will face top seeded and No. 5 ranked Tampa next weekend at Naimoli Field on the UT campus. The first game is set for Thursday, May 15 at 6 p.m. Eastern time. Game two is Friday, May 16 at 3 p.m. with an if necessary game to follow.

Reese Cauley was locked-in as she earned the win with a complete game performance. The rookie won her second game of the regional and improved to 22-4 with six strikeouts while scattering nine hits. At the plate she went 1-for-4 with a run and two RBI, extending her hitting streak to a season-best four for the second time this year.
 
Chloe Baynes, Haley Ann Frank, Lexie Bullock and Faith Wheat all had multiple hits for AUM, which outhit SLU 12-to-9. Wheat went 5-for-9 with two RBI and two runs scored in three games of the regional.
 
After having fallen behind in the first two games of the tourney, the Warhawks broke open the game with a 5-run third inning. Baynes opened the frame with a single to short and later score on a Lexi Love infield single. Two batters later the bases were loaded with one out and AUM opened the floodgates. Cauley drove in a run when the catcher Gabi Olavarria dropped a force out at home. Wheat followed with an RBI single and then Meredith Kellum drove in the final two on a shot back up the middle.
 
In the fourth, the Warhawks scored two on a bases-loaded wild pitch. Baynes scored from third and when the throw to the plate from Olavarria got away from the pitcher, Frank used some heads-up running by never stopping and scored before the tag could get applied.
 
After a 2-plus hour weather delay, the Lions managed to score a run in the sixth on a ground ball through the right side. But Cauley shut them down after that with a strikeout.
 
Cauley got the run back in the top of the seventh when her RBI single up the middle scored Bullock from second after a lead off double.
 
AUM is now 19-11 all-time in NCAA postseason play and 13-6 in regional action, winning the program's third in the last four years. The Warhawks are making their third super regional appearance where they are 4-1.