NEWARK, De. (WDBJ) – In a rematch of last year\u2019s title game, No. 1 seed Jacksonville State scored seven unanswered runs to come back for a 7-4 victory over third-seeded Liberty in the winner-take-all final of the 2026 Conference USA Softball Championship, Saturday at Delaware Softball Diamond. The Gamecocks (45-14) earn their first CUSA tournament championship and will represent CUSA at the 2026 NCAA Division I Softball Championship. Two-time defending CUSA champion Liberty, this year\u2019s No. 3 seed, sees its season end with a 29-28 record. The Lady Flames opened the 2026 CUSA Softball Championship with three straight wins, including a 7-2 victory over Jax State is yesterday\u2019s semifinal round. With Saturday\u2019s final being winner-take-all, both Liberty and Jax State went 3-1 this weekend. Liberty defeated the Gamecocks 8-0 in five innings in the 2025 CUSA Softball Championship final. Liberty\u2019s Savannah Jessee, Savanah Whatley, Brynn McManus and Camden Anders were all named to the CUSA Softball All-Tournament Team.<\/p>\n
Jacksonville State 7, Liberty 4<\/p>\n
Scoring Summary<\/p>\n
Liberty \u2013 3rdINNING \u2013 McManus homers to center, Fox scores, 2-0Liberty \u2013 3rdINNING \u2013 Jessee homers to center, 3-0Liberty \u2013 4thINNING \u2013 Lee steals home, Fox out, 4-0Jax State \u2013 4thINNING \u2013 Rasmussen walks, Underwood and Phillips advance, Kyser scores, 4-1Jax State \u2013 4thINNING \u2013 Elrod walks, Cushingberry and Underwood advance, Phillips scores, 4-2Jax State \u2013 4thINNING \u2013 Nowakowski walks, Elrod and Cushingberry advance, Underwood scores, 4-3Jax State \u2013 4thINNING \u2013 Reed sacrifice fly, Cushingberry scores, 4-4Jax State \u2013 6thINNING \u2013 Reed doubles to center, Elrod scores, 5-4Jax State \u2013 6thINNING \u2013 Martin homer to center, Reed scores, 7-4<\/p>\n
Turning Point <\/p>\n
Liberty built a 4-0 lead, getting back-to-back homers from\u00a0Brynn McManus\u00a0and\u00a0Savannah Jessee\u00a0in the third and then scoring on a double steal play in the fourth.Jax State tied the game in the bottom of the fifth, loading the bases with nobody out on two walks and a single.\u00a0Camden Anders\u00a0walked in a run, leading\u00a0Abigail Findlay\u00a0to come on in relief. After Findlay walked in two runs, Anders reentered and gave up a game-tying sacrifice fly before getting out of the jam.Liberty nearly regained the lead in both the fifth and sixth innings, leaving two runners on base to end both frames.An error opened the door for the Gamecocks in the bottom of the sixth. Amber Reed (RBI double) and Kailey Martin (two-run homer) both came through with two-out RBI to give Jax State the 7-4 lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Notable Numbers<\/p>\n
Liberty outhit Jax State 7-5 for the game, with the Lady Flames committing one error. Both teams left seven runners on base.Mackinley Portillo (9-6) earned the win, allowing one run on two hits, walking five and striking out two in 4 2\/3 innings of relief after starter Makenna Moore lasted 2 1\/3 innings.Camden Anders\u00a0(15-9) drew the loss, allowing seven runs (four earned) on five hits, walking five and fanning five in seven innings.Morgan Nowakowski batted 2-for-3, while Amber Reed went 1-for-2 with a double, two RBI and one run. Kailey Martin batted 1-for-3 with a homer, two RBI and one run.Brynn McManus\u00a0batted 2-for-3 with a homer, two RBI and one run scored, while\u00a0Savannah Jessee\u00a0(1-for-4) hit her 10th\u00a0homer of the season.\u00a0Dani Lee\u00a0and\u00a0Ella Fox\u00a0both doubled for Liberty.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beyond the Box Score<\/p>\n
Liberty leads Jax State 10-5 all-time in softball, including 2-2 in CUSA Softball Championship play. Jacksonville State defeated Liberty 7-2 in the semifinal of the 2025 CUSA Softball Championship, before Liberty run-ruled the Gamecocks in the title game.Liberty was making its third straight appearance in the CUSA Softball Championship title game.Savannah Jessee\u00a0posted eight RBI the 2026 CUSA Softball Championship. The record for RBI in a complete CUSA Tournament is nine, by WKU\u2019s Sophie Weber in 2024.Alexia Carrasquillo\u00a0(12),\u00a0Brynn McManus\u00a0(11) and\u00a0Savannah Jessee\u00a0(10) all hit 10 or more home runs this season. The last time Liberty had three players with double-digit homers in the same year was 2023, when\u00a0Rachel Roupe\u00a0and Caroline Hudson both hit 15 home runs and Megan Fortner recorded 10. This is the fifth year in a row in which multiple Lady Flames hit 10 or more home runs.Liberty is 7-6 all-time in conference tournament finals, and 5-2 under\u00a0Dot Richardson.The Lady Flames\u2019 NCAA Regional run ends at five seasons. This is the first full season since 2019 in which Liberty has not qualified for the NCAA Division I Softball Championship.McManus finishes her career ranked No. 13 in program history with 118 career RBI.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 WDBJ. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWARK, De. (WDBJ) – In a rematch of last year\u2019s title game, No. 1 seed Jacksonville State scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-265353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}