Fall 2024

USA Softball's Aubree Munro prayed in batter's box before clutch hit helped U.S. win world championship

Aubree Munro is coming off one of the most unbelievable softball games of her career.

After all, the former Florida Gators catcher and World Baseball Softball Confederation gold medalist didn’t just drive in a game-tying run with her ground-rule double vs. Japan on Sunday. She set up a 7-6 extra-innings win that sealed USA Softball’s 11th WBSC World Championship. She ensured Japan wouldn’t thwart Team USA’s run at back-to-back titles. And she helped punch her team’s ticket to the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Down 6-4 late in the international contest, Team USA cut Japan’s lead to one with an RBI single, and a follow-up base hit had runners at the corners for Munro. The veteran catcher then laced a double over the wall in Chiba, Japan, where her heroics preceded even more heroics from Kelsey Stewart, who hit a walk-off RBI single in the bottom of the 10th inning to bring home Michelle Moultrie and the world championship.

Munro wasn’t alone when she kept the rally alive, however. Or at least that’s how she’s telling it now that Team USA is headed to the 2020 Games, which will feature the return of softball and, along with it, Japan.

During her critical game-tying at-bat, Munro said via Twitter on Sunday that she “prayed out loud” the entire time she stood in the batter’s box.

On Monday morning, she elaborated. A self-proclaimed Christian whose Twitter bio begins with “Saved by Grace,” she said there was one particular verse that “spoke life into me in my final at-bat,” reminding her that it wasn’t “about the hit” but instead “the confidence I had in the box in Jesus’ name.” That verse: Hebrews 4:16.

An undefeated 10-0 on this season, Team USA will return to the diamond for the Japan Cup starting Oct. 26.

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