With two runners on base and a strike against her, Sara Tucholsky of Western Oregon University did something she had never done before – even in batting practice. In a crucial game against Central Washington University, she smashed a pitch over the center field fence for an apparent three-run home run.
But it was what the opposing team did that made the play so memorable.
As an exuberant Tucholsky reached first base, she looked up to watch the ball clear the fence and missed the bag. Six feet past the bag, she stopped abruptly to go back and touch it. But something gave in her right knee; she collapsed.
“I was in a lot of pain,” Tucholsky said. “Our first-base coach was telling me I had to crawl back to first base. 'I can't touch you,' she said, 'or you'll be out. I can't help you.' ”
Tucholsky crawled back to first but could do no more.
Western Oregon coach Pam Knox rushed onto the field and talked to the umpires near the pitcher's mound. They said Knox could place a substitute runner at first. Tucholsky would be credited with a single and two RBIs, but the graduating senior's home run would be erased.
“The umpires said a player cannot be assisted by their team around the bases,” Knox said. “But it is her only home run in four years. ... I didn't know what to do. ...
“That is when Mallory stepped in.”
Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman is the career home run leader in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Normally when she steps up, opposing coaches grimace.
Her team had entered last Saturday's doubleheader at home in Ellensburg, Wash., one game behind Western Oregon in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference race. At stake was a bid to the NCAA's Division II playoffs. Western Oregon won the first game 8-1. Central Washington needed the second game to keep its postseason hopes alive.
Holtman asked the umpire if she and her teammates could help Tucholsky.
The umpires said nothing in the rule book precluded help from the opposition.
So Holtman and junior shortstop Liz Wallace put their arms under Tucholsky's legs, and she put her arms over their shoulders. The three headed around the base paths, stopping to let Tucholsky touch each base with her good leg.
“The only thing I remember is that Mallory asked me which leg was the one that hurt,” Tucholsky said. “I told her it was my right leg and she said, 'OK, we're going to drop you down gently and you need to touch it with your left leg,' and I said 'OK, thank you very much.' ”
When they touched second base, “we started laughing,” Holtman said. “I said, 'I wonder what this must look like to other people.' ”
Holtman got her answer when they arrived at home plate. She looked up and saw the entire Western Oregon team in tears.
“My whole team was crying,” Tucholsky said. “Everybody in the stands was crying. My coach was crying. It touched a lot of people.”
The team from Monmouth, Ore., won the game 4-2 and extinguished Central Washington's hopes for the playoffs.
Central Washington coach Gary Frederick, a 14-year coaching veteran, called the act of sportsmanship “unbelievable.”
Tucholsky, a career .153 hitter, went to the doctor Tuesday. Her knee is still swollen; her trainer suspects she tore her anterior cruciate ligament.
“In the end, it is not about winning and losing so much,” Holtman said. “It was about this girl. She hit it over the fence and was in pain and she deserved a home run.
“This is a huge experience I will take away. We are not going to remember if we won or lost, we are going to remember this kind of stuff that shows the character of our team. It is the best group of girls I've played with. I came up with the idea, but any girl on the team would have done it.”
Holtman knows something of knee injuries. On May 8, she is scheduled to have arthroscopic surgery on both knees, which have pained her all season. On June 7, she will graduate with a degree in business. She intends to study sports administration in graduate school at Central Washington. Mallory Holtman plans to become a coach.
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