How Auburn, now two wins away, came to believe it could win the national championship
OKLAHOMA CITY -- To get some idea of how far Auburn University was from playing for the national championship in college softball just a few years ago, go back and watch the home run that Tigers senior Jade Rhodes launched high and deep into the clear blue sky above ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in the third inning of Sunday's semifinal against Florida State.
The ball cleared the outfield wall. It cleared the pedestrian catwalk several yards beyond and above that fence. It returned to terra firma part way up a hill that rarely sees much in the way of softballs this time of year.
Metaphorically speaking, that's about how far.
If the arm Rhodes raised in joy almost as soon as she let go of the bat wasn't emphatic enough confirmation of how far the Tigers have come, perhaps Victoria Draper delivered it with a soaring catch to stall a rally and potentially save the game innings later.
When you've come that far, one more inning and one more rally are barely worth sweating.
With exclamation points aplenty on the highlight reel, No. 4 Auburn beat No. 8 Florida State 8-7 in eight innings to win a Women's College World Series semifinal and advance to the best-of-three title series. An Auburn program that reached the World Series for the first time a year ago will play No. 3 Oklahoma for the title beginning Monday. With Paige Parker throwing her third complete game of the World Series and Shay Knighten driving in at least two runs for the third straight game, the Sooners beat LSU 7-3 in Sunday's second semifinal to reach the championship round for the fourth time in their history.
Oklahoma is attempting to become the first program other than Arizona or UCLA to win more than two national championships. But three years after coach Clint Myers arrived in Alabama, and with a lineup not short on players who preceded him, Auburn became the 17th school to reach softball's championship round when freshman Morgan Podany slid home ahead of a tag on a ground ball in the eighth inning.
"I could feel the goose bumps because this is what we were coming to," senior All-American Emily Carosone said of the moment when the umpire signaled Podany safe. "We have the capability. We have the pitching, we have the hitting, we have the defense to win the whole thing. And shock America, shock the world, because Auburn came in as an underdog fully. People didn't know who Auburn was. With what we have done the past three years, it's nice to finally get to where we want to be and where we should be."
That might seem an audacious claim for the fourth overall seed in the NCAA tournament and a fixture near the top of the polls all season, but Carosone was talking about a bigger time frame than the past few weeks or months. No one is surprised this Auburn team is still playing in June.
Even four years ago, no one would have believed any Auburn team could be. Auburn was never a laughingstock, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't a program that mattered in May, let alone when national championships are settled after Memorial Day. Consider that when the current seniors were freshmen, the Tigers finished with a winning record but went 7-17 in the SEC and missed the NCAA tournament.
Before Myers arrived, Auburn had six NCAA tournament wins -- ever. It has eight this year.
The only comparable situation in recent memory is, well, the previous program Myers led. The year before he took charge of Arizona State, the Sun Devils went 30-26 and exited the postseason quietly in an NCAA tournament regional. Three years later, they were national champions.
Quite a bit has transpired between then and now, but the Auburn players are clear when it comes to their memories of the day they learned whom the school had hired as their new coach.
"Trust me, I remember it like it was yesterday," senior Tiffany Howard said.
She knew Arizona State was good, so there was a sense of excitement for the Alabama native. She did a little research and confirmed just how good. That made it more exciting to imagine what might happen at Auburn. It also made her wonder if the new coach would want someone such as her to be part of it.
"Then once it got closer to meeting him, it kind of got nerve-racking because he was a new coach. He was going to want to bring in his own players," Howard said. "So it was kind of like you've got to prove yourself. That kind of feeling came in. But once you talked to him, and them saying, 'Hey, we're going to the World Series, and we're going to do it with this group right here,' it kind of showed he had belief in us. Not even knowing us but knowing what he could do to help us get there."
Carosone said she signed with Auburn because of former coach Tina Deese, who, it cannot go without mention, signed or received commitments from many of the core players on this team. But after a trying first season, the message Carosone heard from the new coach kept her on campus.
"After being there a year, I stayed at Auburn because of Clint Myers, because of what he brought," Carosone said. "When he got there ... the biggest thing that he gave us was confidence. Just knowing that we were the smartest team out here, that we could get it done."
As Myers said, Sunday's win was neither as pretty nor as easy as the Tigers might have liked. It hasn't been an easy week in Oklahoma City.
With a keen hitting mind, even as he insists on the simplicity of his approach, Myers and his coaching staff, which until this season included son and hitting guru Casey, worked on mechanics and process (son Corey is still part of the staff). But they also worked on confidence.
Then was Rhodes, who had just two hits as a freshman and batted .218 in her first season with Myers, came to the plate in the third inning as an all-conference hitter with 17 home runs. She hit No. 18 far enough that she should have gotten credit for two. That three-run blast erased a one-run deficit and put Auburn ahead 6-4.
That was a confident player. So was Draper, a center fielder Carlee Wallace compared to a golden retriever in her unwavering and single-minded desire to go fetch, in stealing a hit that would have scored at least one run in the sixth. If Draper hadn't extended her whole body, if she had worried about landing face first, she wouldn't have made the catch. But she made it, and her sunglasses went flying as she thudded to ground.
Florida State scored none, which meant that when Florida State's Cali Harrod hit a seventh-inning, three-run home run, it tied the game. It didn't win it. Auburn did that when it took advantage of a Florida State fielding miscue an inning later to set up the winning play.
Auburn ranked 140th in fielding percentage and allowed 38 unearned runs in 340 1/3 innings the season before Myers arrived. It ranked 33rd in fielding percentage entering the World Series and has allowed six fewer unearned runs in nearly 100 more innings than four years ago.
No, it wasn't flawless Sunday, but from Draper's catch to Kasey Cooper's barehanded catch and throw on a high infield chopper, it was confident.
"We make the good plays, and the great plays come along," Cooper said. "Playing at Auburn softball, we expect you to make the routine plays, and the great plays will come. That's what our coaches live by."
It is well-chronicled that Myers told the players upon taking charge that the team would go to the World Series. But imagine being in the room and hearing the message. You would want to believe it. You would want to see the championship rings. But it would be difficult.
"I'm not going to lie this time: I was a little iffy about it, honestly," Howard said. "I don't know if you saw our freshman year, but we had a rough season. But as the season progressed, you started believing it. It got better. They were yelling at us less for doing the wrong thing. As the season progressed, I really did start to believe it."
In tight spots against Georgia on Saturday and Florida State on Sunday, Auburn had every reason to imagine the worst. But it believed the best.
After the win, Myers was asked if this was what he expected when he left the softball dynasty he built in the desert to take over one of the sport's backwaters. Did he really believe he would be playing for a national championship so soon?
He paused, but not to collect his emotions about the sentimental power of the journey.
"I'm looking for a humble way to answer that question," Myers said. "Because the answer is yes. The answer is yes. I believe in the people I work with, if they buy in -- which we've proven that they have -- and if they work and commit, great things happen.
"I mean, we've still got softball to play, but having the opportunity to play for a national championship is something we've talked about since we got there."
Since they got there all those many years ago, way back in 2013.
And here they are.
OKLAHOMA CITY -- To get some idea of how far Auburn University was from playing for the national championship in college softball just a few years ago, go back and watch the home run that Tigers senior Jade Rhodes launched high and deep into the clear blue sky above ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in the third inning of Sunday's semifinal against Florida State.
The ball cleared the outfield wall. It cleared the pedestrian catwalk several yards beyond and above that fence. It returned to terra firma part way up a hill that rarely sees much in the way of softballs this time of year.
Metaphorically speaking, that's about how far.
If the arm Rhodes raised in joy almost as soon as she let go of the bat wasn't emphatic enough confirmation of how far the Tigers have come, perhaps Victoria Draper delivered it with a soaring catch to stall a rally and potentially save the game innings later.
When you've come that far, one more inning and one more rally are barely worth sweating.
With exclamation points aplenty on the highlight reel, No. 4 Auburn beat No. 8 Florida State 8-7 in eight innings to win a Women's College World Series semifinal and advance to the best-of-three title series. An Auburn program that reached the World Series for the first time a year ago will play No. 3 Oklahoma for the title beginning Monday. With Paige Parker throwing her third complete game of the World Series and Shay Knighten driving in at least two runs for the third straight game, the Sooners beat LSU 7-3 in Sunday's second semifinal to reach the championship round for the fourth time in their history.
Oklahoma is attempting to become the first program other than Arizona or UCLA to win more than two national championships. But three years after coach Clint Myers arrived in Alabama, and with a lineup not short on players who preceded him, Auburn became the 17th school to reach softball's championship round when freshman Morgan Podany slid home ahead of a tag on a ground ball in the eighth inning.
"I could feel the goose bumps because this is what we were coming to," senior All-American Emily Carosone said of the moment when the umpire signaled Podany safe. "We have the capability. We have the pitching, we have the hitting, we have the defense to win the whole thing. And shock America, shock the world, because Auburn came in as an underdog fully. People didn't know who Auburn was. With what we have done the past three years, it's nice to finally get to where we want to be and where we should be."
That might seem an audacious claim for the fourth overall seed in the NCAA tournament and a fixture near the top of the polls all season, but Carosone was talking about a bigger time frame than the past few weeks or months. No one is surprised this Auburn team is still playing in June.
Even four years ago, no one would have believed any Auburn team could be. Auburn was never a laughingstock, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't a program that mattered in May, let alone when national championships are settled after Memorial Day. Consider that when the current seniors were freshmen, the Tigers finished with a winning record but went 7-17 in the SEC and missed the NCAA tournament.
Before Myers arrived, Auburn had six NCAA tournament wins -- ever. It has eight this year.
The only comparable situation in recent memory is, well, the previous program Myers led. The year before he took charge of Arizona State, the Sun Devils went 30-26 and exited the postseason quietly in an NCAA tournament regional. Three years later, they were national champions.
Quite a bit has transpired between then and now, but the Auburn players are clear when it comes to their memories of the day they learned whom the school had hired as their new coach.
"Trust me, I remember it like it was yesterday," senior Tiffany Howard said.
She knew Arizona State was good, so there was a sense of excitement for the Alabama native. She did a little research and confirmed just how good. That made it more exciting to imagine what might happen at Auburn. It also made her wonder if the new coach would want someone such as her to be part of it.
"Then once it got closer to meeting him, it kind of got nerve-racking because he was a new coach. He was going to want to bring in his own players," Howard said. "So it was kind of like you've got to prove yourself. That kind of feeling came in. But once you talked to him, and them saying, 'Hey, we're going to the World Series, and we're going to do it with this group right here,' it kind of showed he had belief in us. Not even knowing us but knowing what he could do to help us get there."
Carosone said she signed with Auburn because of former coach Tina Deese, who, it cannot go without mention, signed or received commitments from many of the core players on this team. But after a trying first season, the message Carosone heard from the new coach kept her on campus.
"After being there a year, I stayed at Auburn because of Clint Myers, because of what he brought," Carosone said. "When he got there ... the biggest thing that he gave us was confidence. Just knowing that we were the smartest team out here, that we could get it done."
As Myers said, Sunday's win was neither as pretty nor as easy as the Tigers might have liked. It hasn't been an easy week in Oklahoma City.
With a keen hitting mind, even as he insists on the simplicity of his approach, Myers and his coaching staff, which until this season included son and hitting guru Casey, worked on mechanics and process (son Corey is still part of the staff). But they also worked on confidence.
Then was Rhodes, who had just two hits as a freshman and batted .218 in her first season with Myers, came to the plate in the third inning as an all-conference hitter with 17 home runs. She hit No. 18 far enough that she should have gotten credit for two. That three-run blast erased a one-run deficit and put Auburn ahead 6-4.
That was a confident player. So was Draper, a center fielder Carlee Wallace compared to a golden retriever in her unwavering and single-minded desire to go fetch, in stealing a hit that would have scored at least one run in the sixth. If Draper hadn't extended her whole body, if she had worried about landing face first, she wouldn't have made the catch. But she made it, and her sunglasses went flying as she thudded to ground.
Florida State scored none, which meant that when Florida State's Cali Harrod hit a seventh-inning, three-run home run, it tied the game. It didn't win it. Auburn did that when it took advantage of a Florida State fielding miscue an inning later to set up the winning play.
Auburn ranked 140th in fielding percentage and allowed 38 unearned runs in 340 1/3 innings the season before Myers arrived. It ranked 33rd in fielding percentage entering the World Series and has allowed six fewer unearned runs in nearly 100 more innings than four years ago.
No, it wasn't flawless Sunday, but from Draper's catch to Kasey Cooper's barehanded catch and throw on a high infield chopper, it was confident.
"We make the good plays, and the great plays come along," Cooper said. "Playing at Auburn softball, we expect you to make the routine plays, and the great plays will come. That's what our coaches live by."
It is well-chronicled that Myers told the players upon taking charge that the team would go to the World Series. But imagine being in the room and hearing the message. You would want to believe it. You would want to see the championship rings. But it would be difficult.
"I'm not going to lie this time: I was a little iffy about it, honestly," Howard said. "I don't know if you saw our freshman year, but we had a rough season. But as the season progressed, you started believing it. It got better. They were yelling at us less for doing the wrong thing. As the season progressed, I really did start to believe it."
In tight spots against Georgia on Saturday and Florida State on Sunday, Auburn had every reason to imagine the worst. But it believed the best.
After the win, Myers was asked if this was what he expected when he left the softball dynasty he built in the desert to take over one of the sport's backwaters. Did he really believe he would be playing for a national championship so soon?
He paused, but not to collect his emotions about the sentimental power of the journey.
"I'm looking for a humble way to answer that question," Myers said. "Because the answer is yes. The answer is yes. I believe in the people I work with, if they buy in -- which we've proven that they have -- and if they work and commit, great things happen.
"I mean, we've still got softball to play, but having the opportunity to play for a national championship is something we've talked about since we got there."
Since they got there all those many years ago, way back in 2013.
And here they are.
