THE FIGHT NEVER DIED

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Already trailing No. 4 Florida, 4-0, Baylor softball seemed to be teetering on the brink of getting blown out in Sunday's game three of the Gainesville Super Regional.

But a head's-up call from the dugout and a third-inning challenge by head coach Glenn Moore took a Gator run off the board and gave the Bears a chance to pull off an improbable comeback before a crowd of 2,345 at Pressly Stadium.

Senior catcher Zadie LaValley saw that Florida's Katie Kistler left second base early on a 3-2 pitch to Ava Brown that was initially called a bases-loaded walk that put the Gators' fifth run on the board. But the successful challenge ruled that Kistler had left early, sending Reagan Walsh back to third base, and then Aliyah Binford turned a double play to get out of the jam.

"Like we said about Louisiana, once they get their foot in the door, (Florida blows) it wide open, and then you're out of the game," said Baylor coach Glenn Moore, whose team had the tying runs on base in the seventh inning of a season-ending 5-3 loss to the Gators (51-13).

"Being down four runs and coming back and making a game of it doesn't happen a whole lot. You usually don't put up zeroes after that, and we were able to put up two innings of no scoring. So, to be able to come out of that was I think huge for us to continue to believe we had a chance."

Baylor (36-23), trying to advance to the Women's College World Series for the fifth time in program history, found itself in an early hole when the Gators plated two runs off starter RyLee Crandall (17-9) in the first and made it 4-0 in the second on Mia Williams' two-run homer over the wall in center field.

"Got down, dug a hole really quick, and it's hard to climb out of it against a team like Florida," Moore said. "But I did like their fight and really pleased with the way the kids played today."

And fight they did, down to their very last out of the season.

After wiggling out of that jam in the bottom of the third, Binford led off the fourth with a single to left and made it to second on a throwing error by the Florida leftfielder. One of several seniors on the team, catcher Sydney Collazos drove in the Bears' first run of the game with a single to right-center that plated Binford.

Things got even more interesting in the fifth inning, when Emily Hott followed up a leadoff single by Taylor Strain with a two-run blast to right field to make it a one-run game, 4-3.

"Once we got out of that bases-loaded jam, I was like, 'All right, we're still in this,''' Hott said. "Going up there, Taylor said she was doing everything she could to get on. And I'm going to do everything I can to get her in. I thought about bunting, because I really haven't been hitting much this week, but I said, '(Nope), let's just swing as hard as I can.' So yeah, it was good. And I feel like it really put some energy back in the team, and we realized that we can keep fighting through it all."

Freshman pitcher Keagan Rothrock (30-7), who gave up a three-run homer to Shaylon Govan in the Bears' 5-2 win on Saturday, had breezed through the first three innings. But Hott's 11^th homer of the season gave Baylor all the momentum.

"She threw me something inside," said Hott, who was hitless in her first nine plate appearances in the Super Regional. "She was working me a lot out, and I was missing it and pulling it around. You're going to get me a couple times, but you're not going to get me the whole game. I'm going to do whatever I can to keep my team in the game as long as I did and give the opportunity for the girls behind me to come up and have my back. The seniors aren't going to go down easily."

After working around a pair of two-out walks when she came on in relief in the second and then getting out of the bases-loaded jam in the third, Binford worked a 1-2-3 inning in the fourth.

But when the Gators loaded them again in the fifth with back-to-back walks and a fielder's choice on a sacrifice bunt, Binford's Houdini couldn't save the Bears this time. Ariel Kowalewski drove in a run with a sacrifice fly to center before the Baylor junior right-hander limited the damage with a grounder to short and a strikeout to keep it at 5-3.

"We were trying to take everything pitch to pitch, playing every inning like it was a 0-0 ballgame, so every run mattered," said Collazos, who went 4-for-9 in the three-day Super Regional.

"I think making it something smaller than it is really helped us stayed collective and get out of those jams. (Binford and Crandall) bring an energy to the field that even when they're down and getting hit hard, we know they're going to get us out of it. So, just that belief and our trust in our pitchers and our defense, too."

Consecutive at-bats of 12 and 11 pitches by Binford and Collazos, respectively, netted nothing as Rothrock struck out Binford to end the fifth and got Collazos on a fly ball to right.

Quickly running out of chances, the Bears got the tying runs on base with nobody out in the top of the seventh, when Strain led off with an infield single and Hott drew a walk. But they came up empty when Presleigh Pilon popped out on a bunt attempt, Govan had a warning-track shot to left and Binford popped out to first to end the game.

"We don't always have the nine best, but we typically have very close to the best nine out there," said Moore, who led the Bears to their seventh Super Regional. "Our kids are going to play as a team, and they're going to play as a unit. And even if you're more talented and you have all these All-Americans on the other side of the field, they're going to make you earn it every time the step on the field. And I think they proved that today."

Wiping away tears in the postgame press conference, Hott said the Bears were "not playing for each other. We're not playing for ourselves, we're playing for something greater. We're playing for the Lord every time we go out there."

"You see that in the fight when the team goes out there," Hott said. "If one girl makes a play, we're all out there jumping around. You would think we're the ones who just caught that. Just having that fight and backing up every single girl on that team, I've never played for a team that loves each other as much as we do. . . . There was no doubt in my mind until that last ball was caught that we were going to make it through."

Florida, which was outhit 8-6 on the day and 21-16 in the three games, advances to the Women's College World Series for the eighth time in the last 11 years and will face fifth-seeded Oklahoma State on Thursday in Oklahoma City.

"This is never an easy time of the year when you've poured out your heart into everything you're doing throughout the year," Moore said. "These girls certainly have no regrets; they left it all out on the field. Every ounce of effort in their bodies was given to this season. I'm just really proud of how they fought back and got us close to the World Series."

THE FIGHT NEVER DIED

Players Mentioned

Aliyah Binford

Sydney Collazos

RyLee Crandall

Shaylon Govan

Emily Hott

Zadie LaValley

Presleigh Pilon

Taylor Strain

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