ARKANSAS freshman pitcher Mary Haff shows her resiliency.
FAYETTEVILLE — The numbers for Arkansas Razorbacks freshman pitcher Mary Haff at the NCAA’s Fayetteville softball regional read like this:
3-0 record
269 pitches
182/3 innings
0 runs
20 strikeouts
5 walks
5 hits
1 championship
It was a collective effort by the Razorbacks to win their first NCAA regional, of course, but no University of Arkansas, Fayetteville player was more valuable than Haff.
The right-hander from Winter Haven, Fla., went the final 42/3 innings of the Razorbacks’ 6-4 victory over Wichita State on Sunday at Bogle Park and threw 76 pitches after throwing a combined 193 in shutouts against DePaul on Friday and Wichita State on Saturday.
With the Shockers needing to beat Arkansas on Sunday afternoon to force another regional championship game that night, Razorbacks Coach Courtney Deifel didn’t hesitate to go to Haff when Wichita State loaded the bases trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the third inning.
“Mary has a lot of guts and she’s a consistent fighter for us,” Deifel said. “It’s at that point of the season where you don’t count pitches anymore. ‘Tired’ isn’t in your vocabulary. You just do whatever you need to for your team to win.
“That’s exactly what Mary did this weekend. She just was huge for us in the circle. She’s so under control. She’s got ice in her veins.”
Haff gave up a two-run double to Asea Webber — the runs were credited to Arkansas starter Autumn Storms — but shut out the Shockers the rest of the game.
“I’m going to give Autumn Storms credit, too,” Deifel said. “Because we needed every pitch that she gave us.”
Haff allowed just one more hit after the double, but walked two and hit two batters. She stranded six runners.
“I definitely wasn’t feeling amazing after pitching two games the past two days,” Haff said. “But I knew I had to go out there and grind for my team and do whatever I had to do to make outs.”
Haff (29-6) has set a school-record for victories this season.
“Mary’s just resilient all the time,” Arkansas senior third baseman Autumn Buczek said. “We can see that, and we can feel that on defense and that makes us want to play that much harder behind her. It gives us confidence going in to hit.
“So her resiliency on the rubber is everything to us. It carries us in a lot of ways.”