I'm always pretty careful when it comes to promises. They hold a lot of weight and they can make or break a relationship depending on whether you keep or break said promise. I can promise you this though, a university from Texas will win the Women's College World Series of softball.
We had game 1 last night and while it looked like Texas Tech's "gamble" on NiJaree Canady was going to pay off, Texas proved that they weren't going to go down without a fight.
If you are familiar with the game of baseball, you probably know what an intentional walk is. It's usually a pretty theatrical event where the catcher stands off to the side of home plate and holds his glove about as far away from the batter as possible to catch the ball. They do this four times and the batter eventually takes first base.
While intentional walks do happen in softball, it's usually only at the higher levels that you see them. For example, I think this season was the first time I have ever seen my niece intentionally walked in high school softball. In this case, the catcher simply talked to the home plate umpire and they awarded her the base. There wasn't a single pitch thrown.
In the WCWS however, we have seen a number of walks and for all intents and purposes, they actually look a lot like any other at bat. Yes, the catcher does move away from home plate a little bit, but it's not nearly as exaggerated as you see in the MLB.
Texas took full advantage of that in game 1 last night when Reese Atwood came to the plate and Texas Tech tried to walk her with a 1 to 0 lead. Atwood swung at a ball intended to lazily travel into the catcher's off center glove and knocked a ball into left field that would score two runs in the 6th inning.
This was a fair bit of karma given the fact that Texas Tech had been on the happy end of a questionable call in the 5th inning that somehow fell in their favor. Texas threw out a runner at second base by a figurative mile, but the Texas Tech player was awarded the base after review because the shoelace of the Texas player was obstructing the runner. I don't know, something ridiculous like that.
I'm not pro Texas or pro Texas Tech either way, but a bad call is a bad call.
Anyway, Texas held on in the 7th inning to maintain their 2 to 1 lead and win game one of the best of three series. They play again tonight at 8 PM EST. If Texas wins, they take the title, if Texas Tech wins, we see game three on Friday.
My Sports Account - @bozz.sports
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