After Longhorns ace is injured, her teammates rallied for a come-from-behind victory on the road.
It was a freak accident of a play; a simple matter of dead-ball defensive positioning. On an attempted sacrifice bunt, the Alabama batter stepped out of the batter’s box when making contact. Texas catcher Mary Iakopo either didn’t hear the umpire behind her or simply concentrated on getting the lead runner out at second base, picked up the ball, and fired a bullet toward second.
Longhorns pitcher Miranda Elish, perhaps twenty or thirty feet away, happened to be standing directly in the path of the throw and took a ball directly off the face. The ball made a sickening sound on contact, and Elish was immediately flattened into the dirt.
Helped off the field and later taken to the hospital for what was described as “precautionary reasons”, reports were later communicated that Elish was in good spirits and doing well, but would not pitch for the remainder of the series.
The incident had an evident, profound effect on Mary Iakopo. Elish’s catcher at Oregon before the pair transferred to Texas this past offseason, Iakopo had some difficulty behind the plate, allowing a passed ball and not working pitches as well as is her norm.
In the third inning, in her first at-bat after the injury to Elish, Iakopo stepped up to the plate with two runners on and Crimson Tide ace Montana Fouts freshly entered into the ball game. The sophomore backstop proceeded to park a 3-run home run over the outfield wall to bring her Longhorns within a run.
Later, after an MK Tedder home run tied the game at 4-all, it was Iakopo again to the plate. This time, she reached on a throwing error after an infield chopper, a play that ultimately led to three runs being scored in the inning for Texas.
In his mid-game interview on ESPN, Longhorns head coach Mike White was asked about his message to his offense. White’s response communicated one clear message: “”Do it for Miranda… she’s our ace and we’re here because of her… [there was]nothing better than to see Mary [Iakopo] hit that home run.”
The Longhorns finished the game with Shealyn O’Leary in the circle; O’Leary went 5.1 innings, allowing just two hits and one run, and picking up the victory. Texas won the game 7-5 and forced a winner-take-all matchup that is set to kick off at 2:00 pm Eastern time on Saturday.
