BOX SCORE

LAS VEGAS – Karlee Koopman, playing near her home town of Boulder City, Nev., hit a walk-off home run to lift No. 14 Augustana College softball to a season-opening 6-4 win over Regis (Colo.) on Friday afternoon. The Desert Stinger uses the international tiebreaker to decide extra-inning games, putting a runner on second base to start each extra inning.
 
With the score tied at 4-4, Koopman blasted a home run over the center field wall to lift the Vikings to victory. Augustana improved to 1-0 with the victory while Regis dropped to 3-4.
 
Regis held a 4-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth inning before Jenelle Trautmann knotted things up with a three-run home run to center field to tie the game at 4.
 
Trautmann also came into the game in relief of Carley Pickett and threw 3.2 innings of scoreless softball while striking out four batters to earn her first win of the season.
 
Trautmann worked out of a jam in the top of the eighth inning, leaving runners at the corners to give the Vikings a shot in the home half of the eighth.
 
Augustana started the scoring in the game grabbing a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first after Nichol stole third base and came around to score on a throwing error on the play. Regis put together a two-run top of the third inning to take a 2-1 lead before extending the lead to 4-1 scoring a run in each of the fourth and fifth innings.
 
The Vikings responded in the bottom of the fifth inning with a three-run home run by Trautmann that tied the game at 4-4. Nichol flew out to right to start the inning before Carly Peterson reached on an error by the third baseman and Sarah Kennedy singled to put runners on first and second. Trautmann then blasted her first big fly of the season (56th career) to tie the game.
 
Trautmann then sent the Rangers down in order in the sixth and seventh innings and the game would go to extra innings where the Vikings would come away with the 6-4 walk-off win on Koopman's first career home run.  
 
The Vikings were set up to take on No. 3 Dixie State in its second game at the Desert Stinger.