Senior pitcher Brandice Balschmiter quickly put Saturday's winner's bracket loss to Washington behind her, and threw a perfect game in a mercy-rile shortened five-inning 8-0 win over Sacred Heart.
The Minutewomen advanced to the finals for a rematch with the Huskies at 5 p.m. Washington, which beat UMass, 3-1, in Saturday's first game, need to win only once to capture the regional title. If the Minutewomen win, they teams would play a second game 30 minutes after the first.
Balschmiter struck out six and threw 51 pitches as just one ball left the infield in the entire game. She struck out Adrian Fitzsimon to end the game and pumped her fist.
It was the third perfect game of Balschmiter's career and the first this season. It was her 10th career no-hitter.
"I knew I wanted to get by them keep the pitch count down and beat the weather,"  said Balschmiter, who improved to 33-5 this season.
Sacred Heart co-coach Pam London tipped her hat.
"She pitched one helluva game" London said. "For her second game of the day she had a lot of gas left. Kudos to her."
UMass coach Elaine Sortino was pleased with the game's brevity.
"We didn't want to have to play any extra innings, Sortino said. "I thought we came out and did what we needed to do."
UMass (40-9) jumped ahead in the top of the second. After Samantha Salato and Audrey Boutin walked to open the inning, Kyllie Magill poked an RBI single just inside the third base line scoring Salato and moving pinch runner Jordan Storro to third. Magill moved to second on the throw home.
Jessica Serio followed with a bouncer to short. Storro beat the throw home giving UMass a 2-0 lead.
Carly Normandin's RBI single scored pinch runner Jill Andrews to make it 3-0.
The Minutewomen added two more with a two-out rally in the fourth. Normandin's double started the fire and after a Whitney Williams walk, Whitney Mollica stroked a double to right that scored Normandin. Sarah Reeves followed with an RBI single to make it 5-0.
More two-out offense made it 8-0 in the top of the fifth. Mollica capped the rally with an RBI single that gave her 153 career RBIs, tying KJ Kelley's career record.
Mollica, whose error led to the Washington winning runs in the early game, said she didn't let that loss affect her.
"I was a little distraught. But Brandice was the first one that came over and said I'm going to pick you up. By the time the game started I was fine," she said.