BEL AIR, Md. - The Harford softball team earned its first ever MD JUCO Title with a 3-1 defeat over Hagerstown in game two of Wednesday's doubleheader. The split clinched at least a share of the regular season title in the Fighting Owls final regular season game.

After dropping the opening game to the Hawks, 8-7, Harford needed a win in the nightcap to finish with just two losses in MD JUCO action. Sitting at 16-2 in the conference, Harford can still win the title outright if CCBC Catonsville losses just one of its final six games in conference play.

Katie Shultz pitched 3.1 innings of one-hit, scoreless action in relief to earn the win and Tori Brooks provided insurance with her eighth home run of the season. Shultz entered the game in a mini jam and came out unscathed. Desi Joines, who took just her fifth loss of the season in the opener, allowed a game-tying home run with two outs in the fourth. The next batter tripled to right center before head coach Erin Clary made the switch to Shultz, who got the leadoff hitter to line out to second base to end the threat with the score tied at 1-1.

Shultz worked a perfect seventh, with one strikeout, before the team celebrated the program's first championship. 

The opener featured five home runs, three by the Fighting Owls, but with the score tied at 7-7 in the seventh, an unearned run was scored on an error on a bunt play as Hagerstown came away with the win. 

Mackenzie Fitzgerald set the school record with 10 home runs in a season. She hit a solo home run in the second and a grand slam in the third to set the mark. Harford led 7-3 at one point, but a dramatic turn off events in the sixth knotted the score.

With Hagerstown trailing 7-4 with runners on first and second, pitcher Kelsey Kann swung at an 0-1 pitch that hit her forearm. The umpires ruled it a strike since she offered at the pitch, instead of a hit-by-pitch. After an argument, Kann clubbed the next pitch over the left field wall to even the score.

The MD JUCO Conference Championship is the sixth title won by a Harford team this year. The women's soccer team, volleyball team, men's basketball team, women's basketball team and women's lacrosse team won a conference title earlier this year. The baseball team, which is in first-place with three games remaining, could become the seventh.

The Fighting Owls travel to the NJCAA Region X/XX Championships on Friday. No. 4 Harford takes on No. 5 USC Salkehatchie at 11 a.m. in the double-elimination, six-team tournament in Winterville, N.C.