The reigning champs are headed back to the Athletes Unlimited Softball League (AUSL) Championship after defeating the Chicago Bandits in their final game of the regular season. Utah claimed the top seed in the AUSL postseason for the second year in a row after finishing in a tie for first place in the standings.
The 3-1 victory on Sunday night propelled Utah to a 16-9 regular-season record. The Bandits also finished 16-9, but Utah owns the head-to-head tiebreaker by virtue of their three-game sweep earlier this season and clinched the No. 1 seed. This grants them an automatic berth to College Station, Texas, for the best-of-three Championship Series.
Pitcher Georgina Corrick threw an absolute gem, tossing a complete game and allowing just two hits against the best offense in the league. She had one walk, no earned runs, and four strikeouts in the outing to move to 3-1 on the season. Corrick came in off a grueling travel day, flying 10 hours to keep her commitments to the Great Britain National Team, which was competeing in the WBSC Women’s World Cup Group Stage Event in Lima, Peru.
“I think at the end of the day, I would do anything for this team,” Corrick said postgame. “Exhaustion is temporary, but this team is going to be forever. I love playing for Utah, I love playing for my Talons, and everything that I do is for them.”
In the league’s short history, these two teams have had to duke it out their fair share of times. Last year, the Talons swept the Bandits in the championship. Corrick earned the win in the circle in Game One, throwing six innings and allowing just one earned run. This season the Talons finished with a 5-1 advantage in their head-to-head matchups.
“I think it’s really important to acknowledge that the Bandits are a phenomenal team. We faced them in the finals last year; they deserve to be here, the same as all of us,” Corrick said. “And that’s how I feel about softball across the globe. There’s always going to be great competition and every single day you can decide to show up and bet on yourself… it gives my team and me a chance to succeed.”
The Bandits put up their lone run in the first inning when Skylar Wallace drew a walk and used a foul ball caught in the air to advance. A fielding error allowed her to reach third, and then she stole home for the unearned run.
The Talons answered back in the third and sixth, then tacked on an insurance run in the seventh. Jayda Coleman homered to put them on the board. A perfectly executed squeeze bunt from Jordan Woolery pushed Aliyah Andrews across, who opened up the sixth with a single. The offense took advantage of fielding errors by the Bandits to tack on another late.
Utah finished the regular season with a league-best 16 complete games over its 25-game slate. Pitchers Montana Fouts, Megan
Faraimo and Corrick combined to log 15 of them and finish as the best pitching staff in the league with a team ERA of 2.67. They’re the only team with an ERA below 3.00 on the year.
Who the team will face in the championship will be determined by a play-in game featuring the No. 2 vs No. 3 seed on Thursday, July 23. The Bandits have secured a spot, but No. 3 is up for grabs between the Oklahoma City Spark and Portland Cascade. It will be determined on the final game of the regular season on Monday.
The final push for the Talons to repeat will begin on Saturday, July 25. The first of the three-game AUSL Championship Series will be at 1 p.m. ET/Noon CT on ABC.
Savanna Collins is the Senior Reporter for the AUSL. You can follow her on Instagram @savvyco.
