Briones caps Summit title with walk-off homer

By Jeff Kolpack

May 02, 2008 at 11:00 PM

FARGO -- Richel Briones isn't your typical-looking power hitter at 4 feet, 10 inches tall. North Dakota State isn't your typical softball program, either.

The Bison capped a dynamic Summit League championship season on Saturday at the Ellig Sports Complex. Briones' two-out, two-strike line drive home run hit the top of the center field fence and bounced over giving the Bison a 1-0 extra-inning win over Southern Utah.

It was an ESPN moment - if the network would have been there anyway.

"It was one in a million," Briones said. "To hit a walk-off like that, it's one of those things you see on SportsCenter. You don't think it will happen to you."

The Bison won the second game 5-0 behind a career performance by senior pitcher Bekki Rasmussen.

For more on this story, see tomorrow's Forum.

By Jeff Kolpack

Jeff would like to dispel the notion he was around when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, but he is on his third decade of reporting with Forum Communications. The son of a reporter and an English teacher, and the brother of a reporter, Jeff has worked at the Jamestown Sun, Bismarck Tribune and since 1990 The Forum, where he's covered North Dakota State athletics since 1995.
Jeff has covered all nine of NDSU's Division I FCS national football titles and has written three books: "Horns Up," "North Dakota Tough" and "Covid Kids." He is the radio host of "The Golf Show with Jeff Kolpack" April through August.