TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- It was with a home run deep into the night at the Women's College World Series two years ago that Lauren Chamberlain confirmed her place among college softball's brightest galaxy of stars.
By the time that ball vanished into the Oklahoma City night and Chamberlain rounded the bases with a walk-off home run in the opening game of the championship series against Tennessee, her time had arrived.
On this Friday night, a ball lined over the fence into the last shadows of dusk on an Alabama evening, and all that followed its lead, announced that she is not yet ready for that time to come to an end.
For five innings, Oklahoma's lineup, the most prolific in the country when the day began, couldn't come up with any kind of hit against Alabama freshman ace Alexis Osorio, let alone any with the distance to carry over the outfield fence at Rhoads Stadium. Then Callie Parsons, cold off the bench, erased Osorio's no-hit bid with an unassuming single in the sixth. Then Chamberlain erased Alabama's lead with one familiar mighty swing.
One mighty familiar swing.
Momentum stolen and a crowd of more than 3,000 on a Chamber of Commerce evening silenced for the first time, Oklahoma scored three more runs, capped by Kady Self's homer. That was all it needed for a 5-2 win and the all-important upper hand in a best-of-three series that almost always goes the way of the first game.
Oklahoma was on the ropes. Then Chamberlain swung, and suddenly Oklahoma wasn't.
"When Lauren's in clutch situations, Lauren comes through," Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso said. "That's just bottom line, that's how she's been since she first stepped on the campus at OU. She loves -- loves -- these settings, and you can feel it."
Of Chamberlain's 93 career home runs, which as you may have heard a few times are more than any other player in the history of the sport, 15 have come in 30 NCAA tournament games. That rate of one every two tournament games in which she has played is even greater than the rate at which she hits them when the season isn't on the line.
She has 43 RBIs and a slugging percentage of almost 1.000 in 30 tournament games.
Or how about this?
This super regional is the 11th round of the postseason in which Chamberlain has played -- regional, super regional and World Series. She has at least one home run in nine of them.
As has so often been the case this season, and despite her protests to the contrary, Chamberlain's performance makes it easy to overlook what happens around her.
What came after her home run turned a tie into a win. Shelby Pendley, who quietly played a brilliant game on a sprained ankle -- particularly in making several good defensive plays at shortstop -- walked on five pitches to deny Osorio a chance to catch her breath. Erin Miller beat out a bunt with a better burst of speed out of line with a .722 slugging percentage. Paige Parker, the starting pitcher asked for so much of the night to keep up with Osorio on the biggest of super regional stages, gave herself the lead with a sacrifice fly that fell not too short of clearing the fence itself. Then Self, missed so much a season ago when an injury kept her out of the postseason, delivered the final blow.
And even more tellingly, what happened before Chamberlain's swing enabled her to tie the score in the first place. Parsons had only 31 at-bats all season when Gasso called her off the bench to pinch hit in the sixth against a pitcher who to that point had been literally unhittable.
"She may not have seen as much opportunity throughout the season," Gasso said. "But I feel comfortable putting her in here in this situation because she's been there and she's done that. And she's a senior. She knew what we wanted and that really kind of started the rally, just trying to get a leadoff on."
The coach also called the senior outfielder her "postseason queen," but the truth of the statistical record is that Parsons had a .281 career postseason average, good but not the stuff of royalty. But Parsons put the bat on the ball.
"I'm just trying to do my job and that's find the gap in the infield and hit it through it," Parsons said. "I got a good piece of it."
That opened the door for Chamberlain. Hit by a pitch in her first at-bat after Osorio got ahead of her in the count, she worked the count full in the third inning but popped out to the catcher. She said after the game she felt as if she was thinking too much in those at-bats and tried to simplify things in the next trip. Against a pitcher who had given up only eight home runs all season, she saw the pitch she wanted on a 2-0 count and let loose.
"First at-bat just trying to see her spin and see what we were going to work with for the rest of the game," Chamberlain said. "I think the first one was more of a learning at-bat. Second one, felt more on it. Saw a little bit more pitches so I could kind of get a better feel for it. And then third at-bat, was just ready to go."
Playing for the first time in Tuscaloosa, home annually to what are indisputably the largest crowds and disputably the most passionate, Chamberlain recalled that when an Alabama player reached first base at one point during the game, the Oklahoma star told her she wished she had played at Rhoads Stadium earlier. It was too much fun to miss.
Season on the line. Career on the line. Crowd against her. And it was fun.
Moments are easy to find and difficult to seize as spring turns to summer. Alabama had one in its grasp in the bottom of the seventh inning. The Crimson Tide loaded the bases against Parker and brought Marisa Runyon to the plate with two outs. One of the most promising, if not already one of the best, power hitters in the country, Runyon could have etched her name in Alabama lore with a home run or sent the game to extra innings with a double. She worked the count full, fouled off a pitch and then fouled off another. And then she struck out swinging to end the game.
"Most of the time, she's going to come through," Alabama coach Patrick Murphy said. "She battled, and it was just a good fight at the end."
That's the thing. No one comes through most of the time. The odds aren't ever really in a batter's favor in those moments. More times than not, no matter how many times it goes the other way in movies, it isn't going to work out.
Even the great hitters are going to fail more often than they succeed.
It just doesn't feel like it when Chamberlain is at the plate.