Do you believe in miracles?

Do you believe in miracles?

A miracle can be defined as “a highly improbable or extraordinary event, development, or accomplishment that brings very welcome consequences.”

What the 3,445 fans on hand — another new attendance record, btw — witnessed on Saturday evening at Mizzou Softball Stadium checked off all the boxes and was nothing short of a miracle.

• Highly improbable: CHECK. Needing two wins on Saturday to keep their season alive, the Tigers first took down Indiana 5-1, and then systematically dismantled Washington 4-1 a few hours later.
• Extraordinary event/development/accomplishment: CHECK. Jenna Laird hit a home run, you guys. And don’t forget what this pitching staff did... pretty incredible.
• Very welcome consequences: CHECK. I’d say getting to play Sunday for a chance at a Regional title and Super Regional berth is a VERY welcome consequence of good softball.

So yeah, Saturday definitely had the makings of a miracle, and Mizzou head coach Larissa Anderson agreed.

“What an absolutely gutsy, gutsy team performance,” Anderson said to lead off her press conference late Saturday evening. “I’m just so unbelievably proud of how we responded to yesterday (Friday) and how we came out with energy and made adjustments. Everything I talked about they took to heart and they really came out here and competed.”

The Tigers scattered seven hits in this one off of three different Huskies pitchers (the final one, Gabby Nelson, didn’t allow a hit in her lone inning of work) with Jenna Laird and Abby Hay accounting for two hits apiece and the top half of the lineup doing most of the damage. The Tigers also spread out their scoring into three different innings, and only struck out twice while stranding a more palatable four runners.

The Huskies, for their part, scattered six hits and a walk off of Mizzou starter Laurin Krings, but only got one run off it, stranding five while striking out four times.

Guts

Photo courtesy of Mizzou Athletics

Above all else, this team on Saturday displayed guts.

After throwing 6.1 innings and 86 pitches in Game 1, Laurin Krings turned around and threw 77 more in 4.2 innings. For those keeping track, that’s 163 pitches on the day in 11 innings. With 2 wins. And just two earned runs. And 6 strikeouts. And a 1.27 ERA. Oh, and an opportunity to do it all over again Sunday.

That’s guts.

She wasn’t perfect in the evening session, allowing six hits, but with the Tiger offense clicking and the defense doing its job, it didn’t seem like the Huskies ever really threatened. As Anderson told us after Friday’s loss, it takes a ton of pressure off a pitcher when they don’t have to worry about that.

After a 1-2-3 first inning, Krings allowed two baserunners with a two-out single and a walk before a strikeout, Krings’ second, ended the threat. In the third she allowed two more runners on a pair of singles but again escaped unscathed.

The fourth inning was my personal favorite. After allowing a one-out single to UW’s top hitter and Lee’s Summit native Kinsey Fiedler, a fielder’s choice took out the lead runner at second. But it was the strikeout of Giselle Alvarez, number three for the day for Krings that elicited a fiery response. The Tigers were only up 2-0 at this point, but I knew — I KNEW! — after seeing the emphatic celebration that there was no way UW would come back from this.

Even in the fifth, as a long single by Jillian Celis plated the Huskies’ first (and only) run, I had no doubts. The Huskies weren’t taking this game. This Tiger team simply wouldn’t allow it.

Anderson was understandably effusive in her praise of the ace on Saturday night saying, “Krings (had) one of the best pitching performances in two games that I’ve ever seen out of anybody, and especially against two quality teams.”

When asked if there any thought to go with someone else for the Washington game, Anderson said Krings approached her after the Indiana game and said, “You said to me to go as long as I can for as hard as I can, And then when I have nothing left, you’ll come and get me. I still have something left. So put me back out there. And then when I have nothing left, you can come and get me.”

And that is exactly what Anderson did. And what she’ll likely do on Sunday.

When asked if we’d see her on Sunday, Anderson said, “She’s gonna want the ball. I mean, she’s a competitor, she wants to win, and she’ll want the ball tomorrow. And part of why she’s not up here on the podium today is that she’s in the training room to get some treatment to be able to recover as fast as she can.”

Power

Photo courtesy of Mizzou Athletics

Power was the name of the game on Saturday, and when they needed it, the Tigers got it. Solo home runs by Abby Hay in the second inning on a towering hit to center and Jenna Laird’s very long shot to right field in the third accounted for two of Missouri’s four runs.

Hay was asked post-game what it felt like to hit a bomb in her home stadium in front of that massive crowd, and she said, “It means the world. Last year I was in the stands. So knowing that in a year that I was on the field doing that is just awesome. I mean, I love this community and I’ve always loved it.”

There was more to the team’s power on Saturday night than the traditional long ball, however. It could also be found in capitalizing on your teammates’ performances.

In the fifth, after Laird initially singled down the left field line and Alex Honnold followed with a single to right, she high-tailed it to third which prompted a pitching change. With Sidne Peters then in the circle, Honnold swiped second to move the runners up and a Maddie Gallagher bloop single up the middle scored Laird to make it 3-1. Hay followed with a single of her own and took second on the throw, scoring Honnold and making it 4-1.

Power also extended to Krings’ performance as well, as she pushed herself to the limit. And don’t forget Marissa McCann.

“It’s extremely, extremely difficult to throw six innings and then be in the locker room for 45 minutes and then come out and have to warm up again and then throw another five innings,” Anderson said post-game. “It’s extremely difficult to do mentally (and) physically, and for her to just guide herself and will herself to be able to do that is extremely impressive.”

Marissa McCann, who entered for Krings with two out in the fifth, tallied quite a peculiar yet totally awesome stat. Per the Trib’s Calum McAndrew, McCann faced seven Washington players in her 2.1 innings of work, and took just 12 pitches to retire them. Her final inning of work went like this: Alvarez flyout — Carter foul out — Johnson ground out. Tough as nails.

“McCann’s really special,” Anderson said post-game. “For her to have the composure that she does as a freshman is impressive. What makes her really special is she has a real dynamic changeup, so that keeps her in the game, (because) her ball just moves.”

Coach went on to talk about how LSU’s Beth Turina talked with her during the SEC tournament and said that McCann frustrated them because they “couldn’t figure her out.”

“In a way, that’s a good thing,” Anderson said, “So that means when the ball is spinning out of her hand, they can’t read where the ball is going... She’s tough as nails for a freshman to be able to have that composure.”

The power also extended behind the plate to Julia Crenshaw’s arm, as she had an incredible day back there. After nailing a runner trying to swipe second in the first game, she was back for more in the evening session, firing down to second base to take out Belton, Mo. native Avery Hobson as she attempted to steal in her.

750 Days

A lot has happened in the last 750 days, the last time Jenna Laird hit a home run. Here’s a small sampling:

• The Kansas City Chiefs won two Super Bowls.
• The KC Current built CPKC Stadium, the first standalone facility for women’s professional soccer, and played a season in it.
• St. Louis City unveiled the opening of its soccer stadium, CITYPARK, and are currently in their second season.
• The now-retired Adam Wainwright, Albert Pujols, and Yadier Molina were still members of the St. Louis Cardinals.
• The Las Vegas Aces have won two WNBA titles.
• Taylor Swift played 89 shows of the Eras Tour, which kicked off in March 2023.
• Beyonce played 56 shows of the Renaissance World Tour, which began in May 2023 and then switched genres and became a country sensation.

Said Laird of the home run when I asked her about it post-game, “You know,” she said, “I was just hoping it wasn’t going foul. I looked at it and I knew it was gone. It was just whether it was staying on the right side of the foul pole.”

She continued. “So, I mean, homeruns are not everything to me, but I just knew I was getting close (she’s had at least 3 hits the past two weeks that have been super close to getting out). Abby (Hay, who was sitting right next to her) likes to tell me to do pushups before every at bat so I was just — as soon as it hit the bat — I knew it was going to go out and just hoping it was staying on the west side.” (note to the readers: she did not do pushups before this AB, but she did do them after her AB against South Carolina when it hit the wall because Abby made her).

Chasing Perfection

Photo courtesy of Mizzou Athletics

It still wasn’t a perfect game by the Tigers. The baserunning, while more conservative than the horror show witnessed earlier, was still an issue.

In the fifth, after plating two runs to make it 4-1, Julia Crenshaw hit into a fielder’s choice and Gallagher, who didn’t have to go, was thrown out at home. That one was annoying, but I could see the play there and didn’t mind the aggressiveness. What happened next, however, made me want to throw my hands up in the air. In what I think was an ill-timed double steal attempt (it worked perfectly when Honnold and Laird executed it during the SEC tourney, mind you) things went horribly awry after Crenshaw was caught in a rundown between first and second, thereby negating what would have been the fifth run that scored. Sigh.

Claire Cahalan (“Tiny Claire”) continued her string of bad luck with hitting balls hard, but right at someone or enough in the vicinity in which an excellent play could take it away. After this happened to her twice in the Omaha game, I thought it was just happenstance of facing the no. 5 defensive team in the country. But it kept going on Saturday as in the bottom of the second with a runner on third, she shot a liner towards third base and Alvarez, the third baseman, was somehow able to grab it before it hit the ground. After it happened again in the fifth on a laser that got past Alvarez but not Holtorf at short, I’m convinced she’s cursed by the small ball.

And I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the bottom of the lineup, who hasn’t done much this series. Crenshaw is 1-for-9 with a strikeout, walk and hit by pitch. Abruscato is doing well, as she’s 2-for-8 with a walk. Daly is 0-for-7 with three strikeouts, a HBP, sac fly, and RBI. Cahalan we’ve already talked about— she’s 1-for-8 with a strikeout, and Lenger is 1-for-9 with two strikeouts, a walk, an RBI and a caught stealing. They need to be more productive, full stop.

Wrapping up

I’ll leave you with this, from Jenna Laird, who spoke with us after the decisive Washington victory to save their season.

“I mean, after we won that first game, that second game Alex Honnold and I looked at each other and we’re like, now we’re going into tomorrow. Like, we know, our team wants it just as bad as we do. Our freshman want it just as bad for us as we want it, just for them as well, because we know it’s not just our postseason,” she said. “It’s everyone’s postseason. It’s coach’s and all that. So we just know that going into tomorrow (Sunday), we’re fighting for everything. Whether it’s a win or a loss we’re fighting. We know that we’re going out doing what we love, doing what we do best, which is playing softball freely and carefree and not stressing.”

I ask again, do you believe in miracles?

Game on.