With one out in the last inning and being down by one junior softball player Anna Gladwin stepped up to the plate, and with one swing of the bat, the game was over.
On April 24, the softball team faced off in a home game against Cleveland.
As the game began, Cleveland took a quick lead, scoring a run early. They would hold on to that lead for a while, until the team was able to get the bases loaded.
Senior Lilah Carey stepped up to the plate and got a single resulting in a run and a 1-1 tie going into the later part of the game. But Cleveland would not back down, scoring another run that gave them a 2-1 lead entering the last inning.
With one out, and freshman Lucy Anderson on first, junior Anna Gladwin stepped up to the plate.
“As I went up to the plate I’m like, ‘Well whatever happens, happens,’” Gladwin said.
Gladwin first attempted a bunt to try and move the runner over to second and get a better chance to score Anderson and tie the game.
“My coach was like, ‘Bunt, please.’ But I couldn’t get down the bunts,” Gladwin said.
So with two strikes on Gladwin, the only option Gladwin had was to swing. And when she did, the ball hit the top of the fence resulting in a walk-off home run in a 3-2 win.
“The minute it was hit, it was for sure a home run,” senior Mercedez Berduo-Flores said. “I was first to run out too, everybody was not coming out cause they didn’t know if it was a home run, but I was already out celebrating.”
Initially, Gladwin thought she hit a pop-up because it was so high up in the air, but her coaches told her to keep running. Gladwin then stopped on third thinking the ball was in play. But when the umpires got together to decide if it was a home run, they gave Gladwin the signal that it was.
“You could just feel everyone realizing what had happened. The energy was crazy,” sophomore pitcher Izzy Hale said.
The team celebrated at home plate with fans and the baseball team watching and cheering for the first home run of Gladwin’s high school softball career–and the first home run at the home field.
“When Anna got that home run everybody went crazy, it was crazy, it was f*cking amazing,” Berduo-Flores said.
It’s no doubt that Gladwin’s walk-off could be one of the most exciting moments for school sports this year.
