Two moments saved Auburn in the Women’s College World Series
On Tuesday night, it was nearly the end of the line for the Auburn University Tigers in the finals of the Women’s College World Series. They had lost game one to Sooners of Oklahoma University, and since it’s a best-of-three championship, they had to win or go home. As if that wasn’t enough pressure, the Oklahoma softball team had a 31-game winning streak.
Auburn had already made a comeback in this game. They were trailing 7-0 in the second inning and crawled their way back to tie the game in the fourth. The game was still tied 7-7 in the top of the sixth inning when Oklahoma’s Shay Knighten hit a big, long fly ball to left field. It could have been gone, breaking the tie and giving Auburn a deficit of two runs to overcome.
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But Auburn’s Tiffany Howard went to the wall, jumped into the air, and caught the ball before it could leave the stadium (and before a fan with a hat tried to snag it as a souvenir).
The game stayed tied in the seventh (the final inning in softball), so they went to extra innings. The Tigers blanked the Sooners in the top of the eighth, and they needed just one run to win the game, tie the series, and force a third game. They needed one, but Emily Carosone gave them four.
After a bunt, a single, and a walk, Carosone stepped to the plate and jacked a grand slam to win the game 11-7.
While every win is a team effort, Tiffany Howard and Emily Carosone deserve a gold star for this one. The winner-take-all game three will be played tonight at 7:00 p.m., and you can catch it on ESPN. If you want to see a replay of the stirring heroics of game 2, you can see that on ESPNU at 1:00 p.m.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at [email protected] or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
