Staff photo / Neel Madhavan. Ursuline’s Emma Davies belts a ball into left-center field for a double during Thursday’s playoff game against Louisville at the YSU Softball Complex.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Ursuline softball team battled more than just the Louisville Leopards on Thursday.

First, the eighth-seeded Fighting Irish received an unlucky draw in their bracket, getting paired against underseeded Leopards, last year’s Division III Northeast regional finalists.

Then, two Ursuline players got injured during the course of the game, which forced the team to make multiple position changes and substitutions. That put an already shorthanded lineup in a jam, and by the end of the game, the Irish were down to just eight healthy players in their hitting lineup.

Even though they eked out an early lead, it all still snowballed for the Irish. In the end, the circumstances were just too much to overcome, as Ursuline’s season came to an end with an 11-3 loss to Louisville in the sectional final of the Division III, Northeast 5 bracket at YSU Softball Complex.

“I give a lot of credit to the girls because they are a very good, supportive team,” Kristina Dugan said. “With our backs against the wall, it just felt like one thing happened, then another thing happened and another thing happened — almost out of our control. What can you do? We’ve been focusing on controlling what you can control, and I felt like they did their best to keep their heads high and hold them as much as they could. So I am proud of them in that regard.”

After the Leopards opened the scoring with a run in the top of the first inning, Ursuline answered with two runs in the bottom of the frame off back-to-back RBIs from Ella Lewis and Lauren O’Leary for a 2-1 lead.

However, Louisville’s bats stayed hot for most of the game. The Leopards racked up 16 total hits, adding two runs in the second inning, three runs in the third and fourth innings and two runs in the sixth inning.

Taylor Thompson led the way for Louisville, going 4-for-4 with an RBI, while Shae O’Neill was 2-for-4 with three RBIs. Bailee Griffith had two doubles, and several other players had two hits and two RBIs.

Ursuline’s only other run came in the bottom of the third inning on Lewis’ second RBI of the evening. Emma Davies went 2-for-4 with a double, while Lila Jones had a double and Alice Stroney had a triple.

The Irish had success off Leopards starter Kate Miller, but Taylor Schneider came in during the third inning and proceeded to shut down Ursuline’s lineup. Schneider struck out eight, while allowing one hit in 4.2 innings for Louisville.

Dugan said she’ll remember this year’s Irish for how they’ve helped turn the program around.

Last year, Ursuline went 6-16, its first losing season in almost a decade. But this spring, with a young and talented squad, the Irish finished the season at 13-7.

“For how young they are, I’m excited by how much they grew from last year,” Dugan said. “Basically, to flip their wins and losses from last year to this year says a lot about them, and they still have a lot more growth in them because it is a fairly young team. So even though I felt like we fell short this year, I also am excited to see them grow and excited and really proud of where they came from, for sure.”

Ursuline is set to return most of its roster next year, as it looks to continue to build off what it accomplished this season.

“I feel like the sky’s the limit with them,” Dugan said. “I really think they have a lot of potential.”