ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Every coach comes into a game with a plan, but when a player is turning in a special performance, plans change.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UCF softball coach Cindy Ball-Malone experienced that against Houston.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan was to start her, and the score was at where we could make a change, pitching wise,” Ball-Malone said about the weekend plan for Isabella Vega. \u201cCoach (Shannon Saile) and I are looking at each other like, \u2018We knew that we were going to split this game with someone else, but this isn\u2019t just a no-no, it\u2019s a perfect game right now.'”<\/p>\n
Ball-Malone stuck with her gut, and redshirt sophomore Issa\u00a0Vega\u00a0responded with the performance of a lifetime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely try not to think about it. I was just like, ‘Let me go out there and give it my best and give the ball to my defense so we can get out there and score more runs’,” Vega said. “It was never like, \u2018Oh my gosh, I\u2019m throwing a perfect game’.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fifteen outs, no hits, no walks with seven strikeouts for the fourth perfect game in program history and the first since graduate assistant Sarah Willis’ performance three years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Both of us just getting to celebrate each other is really cool,” Willis said. “Especially, her being able to do it in those five innings and be quick with it.”<\/p>\n
For Vega to put her name in the history books, she admits it wouldn\u2019t have been possible without her teammates.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey make it so much fun. When the games going great or not going great either way, we always stick together,” she said. “We\u2019re all super close. They\u2019re friends; they\u2019re not just teammates. We\u2019re sisters.\u201d<\/p>\n
UCF will lean on Vega during the Big 12 Softball Tournament, which begins Thursday against fifth-seeded Kansas at OGE Energy Field in Oklahoma City.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0Every coach comes into a game with a plan, but when a player is turning in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1011,1238,274,12825,1236,1190,115,139,141,140,110,278,835],"class_list":["post-260299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-brandon-green","tag-florida-sports","tag-human-interest","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}