St. Johns River State College brought home its first softball national championship in spectacular fashion, a walk-off blast by a player who could have easily been down on herself.
Instead, Alyssa Vallad made history.
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The freshman crushed a two-run homer in the bottom of the seventh to slap an exclamation point on the most dominant close to a season in program history and deliver the Vikings a 7-5 win over Kirkwood for the NJCAA Division II title in Spartanburg, SC.
Ninth-seeded SJR State (55-15) closed the season in storybook fashion, fighting back out of the loser’s bracket in the district tournament in early May and winning its final 10 games as coach Joe Pound and the Vikings thrived on the edge.
Before Vallad stepped to the plate with history on the line, she had just made the biggest gaffe of the season, dropping a routine fly ball that would have sealed the Vikings NJCAA crown. Sixth-seeded Kirkwood’s Kiya Johnson blasted a two-run homer one batter later to put the Eagles in front 5-4. Kirkwood erased a 4-1 deficit with two outs in the seventh.
The Vikings calmly answered. Kendall Catherwood opened the bottom of the seventh with a bunt, stole second and scored on a double by Caylee Elder to knot things at 5-all. Up came Vallad, who was 0 for 3 on the afternoon. She hit a line drive blast over the wall in left, her 19th of the season, and the celebration was on.
Catherwood and Princess Arredondo had two hits apiece for the Vikings. Vallad had three RBI to deliver the most remarkable late season run ever. SJR State was one loss away from elimination in the NJCAA Division II South District tournament on May 10. It came out of the loser’s bracket to win the district title and qualify for nationals.