BELLEVUE – Northwest sent off its softball seniors with a conference win as part of a split on Saturday with Providence, winning 3-0 before dropping the non-conference finale 6-5.
 
Seniors in their last home games were Sydney Maurer, Madisyn Leffle and Paige Creasey.
 
"Happy for the seniors for getting the conference sweep of the series and I'm thankful for their dedication to the program," said NU Head Coach Pam Fink. "It was great to celebrate them today."
 
Natalie Dimitrov set the single-season strikeout record for NU in the opener while picking up her school-record 12th win and tying the single-season shutouts record with four.
 
She whiffed five batters in the complete-game win. The freshman now has 90 strikeouts on the season.
 
NU scored all three of its runs in the first inning. Maurer grounded out to plate Leffler, Creasey followed with an RBI double and Chloe Van Boekhout came through with an RBI single.
 
The Eagles had six hits in the game, led by Creasey and Leffle with two each.
 
NU got out to an early 1-0 lead in the second game with an RBI grounder by Leffle in the second.
 
Providence scored four in the third inning, highlighted by RBI singles by Hernandez and Creech.
 
Van Boekhout added an RBI double in the bottom of the third to make it a 4-2 game and closed to within a run in the fifth with an RBI single by Bella King.
 
NU took the lead in the sixth with n RBI single by Kayla Stanley and an RBI ground out by Maurer.
 
Palmer tied the game with an RBI triple and scored on a ground out by Hernandez to get the final margin in the top of the seventh.
 
NU had six hits in the game, led by Stanley with two. Van Boekhout and Cedella Ritchie had doubles.
 
The conference win placed the Eagles 1.5 games ahead of Carroll for the final playoff spot. NU had three more conference games in a four-game series at Southern Oregon next week. Carroll has a single Cascade Collegiate Conference game with Providence and a three-game set at home against Bushnell.
The Eagles won their 21st game of the season.