The math said it was inevitable. The Bandits needed only one game to make it a reality.
But it didn’t happen without a fight.
With their 8-7 victory over the Volts in Round Rock, Texas, on Thursday, the Bandits clinched the second and final postseason berth in the Athletes Unlimited Softball League. The victory gave them a record of 12-7 and eliminated the Volts (6-13).
The Bandits will face the Talons in the Championship Series on July 26-28 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Home-field advantage is still in play as the first-place Talons aim to secure the No. 1 seed.
In Thursday’s game, the Bandits used a two-run third inning and a three-run fourth inning to rally from an early 2-0 deficit, only to fall behind 6-5 in the fifth. A three-run home run by Skylar Wallace in the sixth put the Bandits up 8-6, and they held on from there.
“I never thought of it as inevitable,” said Bandits Head Coach Stacey Nuveman Deniz. “We had every opportunity to do it. But it doesn’t happen until it happens. And crazier things have gone down in sports, where a team thinks they’ve just got one more to go.
“We really didn’t even talk about it. As a staff, we knew what the math was, but it was not a discussion that we had. It was about coming out here and playing to win and let all of that other stuff take care of itself. We’d be lying if we said it didn’t creep in, in terms of the commentary on it. But it wasn’t a focus. It shouldn’t have been. It wasn’t. It’s not going to be. It’s sharpening our edge getting into this home stretch of regular season so that we feel as prepared and confident as humanly possible going into that three-game series.”
In Thursday’s game, Bandits starting pitcher Odicci Alexander gave up single runs in each of the first two innings before the Bandits began their comeback.
In the top of the third, Morgan Zerkle hit her seventh home run of the season, and Danielle Gibson Whorton later added an RBI single.
The Bandits followed with three in the fourth inning, with two coming in on a throwing error by Volts catcher Dejah Mulipola and another scoring on a double by Gibson Whorton.
Wallace’s home run gave the Bandits some much-needed breathing room.
Lexi Kilfoyl picked up the win to improve to 4-1 with three innings of two-hit, one-run ball.
“I think the biggest thing is we have our leaders on our team, and the others are falling (in) right there with us, like, ‘Hey, we can control what we can control,’” Wallace said. “We were chilling on the bench. We were still having that communication.
“It’s just like we gotta keep going, keep going, keep doing what we’re doing, and we’re going to find a way. It was just get on base and let the hitters do what they do. That was our main focus. Obviously, the vibe stayed high.”
The Bandits began the season by taking two of three from the Talons in Rosemont and ran out to a 9-2 record. They hit a bump in the road, going 2-5 in their next seven games entering Thursday’s game.
“Doubt never creeped in,” Wallace said. “We obviously started off really hot, and we came back (after the break). There was a little bit of a shift of something. We didn’t really know what it was. We knew we had to stay together. We knew we could control how we prepared. We knew we could control how our attitudes are. We knew we could control our early hitting, getting our swings in to make sure we’re prepared for the game. We can control those things … Find that and move forward and get back to who we are as Bandits.”
Bruce Miles has covered sports in the Chicago area for 46 years, including baseball, hockey, football and Athletes Unlimited Pro Softball. He covered the Chicago Cubs in their historic run to the World Series title in 2016. He has written stories for Athletes Unlimited since 2020.
Follow Bruce on Bluesky @brucemiles2112.bsky.social and on X @brucemiles2112
