COLUMBIA, Mo. — Playing a fourth game in some 25 hours under a burning sun and suffocating layer of humidity-induced sweat, Missouri’s softball team began to notice the fatigue.
It was the middle of a scoreless, tied game against Omaha. As had been the case in each of the previous three games, losing meant the end of the season. Winning meant advancing. Add pressure to the list of environmental factors.
Catcher Julia Crenshaw returned to the dugout, pulled off her mask and looked concerningly pale. MU coach Larissa Anderson instructed her assistants and trainers on what to do to keep the team going if she passed out on the field, given the dizziness she was feeling.
“You could just see exhaustion was starting to set in,” Anderson said.
You could also see the exception: Mizzou pitcher Laurin Krings.
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Her ironwoman performance was the difference between the Tigers and the field during the weekend’s Columbia regional, in which No. 7 Missouri recovered from a defeat Friday to win four consecutive elimination games and advance to the super regional round of the NCAA Tournament.
Krings started all four elimination games, throwing 364 pitches across 25 innings. She only allowed three runs and struck out 24 batters.
She was particularly impressive in Sunday’s finale, a 1-0 extra-innings win over Omaha. While her teammates and opponents grappled with the workload of a demanding postseason weekend, Krings was steadfast in the center of the diamond.
She pitched all nine innings, shutting out the Mavericks. Of the 27 outs recorded by Mizzou, 15 came on strikeouts. Two more outs came on ground balls she handled.
Krings drove the Tigers through a grueling, low-scoring game. In Anderson’s eyes, the MU ace also represented what the team did to advance from the regional round.
“I don’t think I’ve witnessed — definitely have not coached but witnessed — a more gutsy, gritty performance by not an individual player in Laurin Krings but this team,” she said.
And Krings wasn’t even supposed to be in the circle for it.
After starting both games Saturday, she went straight from the locker room to the training room, where she “cannonballed” into a tub of ice water. There was an urgency to her recovery with the knowledge that Mizzou would need her in at least some capacity on Sunday.
Anderson watched Krings’ arm during a brief bullpen session Sunday morning and deemed her good to go for a start in the first game. Krings lasted five innings in that matchup, leaving after giving up a sixth-inning double that broke up a no-hit bid and turned into the Mavericks’ run in Mizzou’s 5-1 victory.
Anderson assumed that was it for her ace. Cierra Harrison, a sophomore who is the Tigers’ secondary starter, would start the second game. Relievers Marissa McCann and Taylor Pannell would carry any load that Harrison couldn’t.
And then Krings walked up to her coach during the 35-minute window between the doubleheader’s games.
“I’m getting the ball again, right?” she asked Anderson.
The MU coach couldn’t — and didn’t — say no to that kind of confidence.
Even as Krings mowed down Omaha hitters, Anderson focused on and worried about Krings’ endurance. She considered pulling the pitcher at some point in “almost every inning,” she said. The aforementioned relievers — plus Harrison, in the early frames — kept up a flurry of activity in the bullpen.
Krings wasn’t entertaining the idea of coming out. She stayed in.
That Krings was available and able to throw more than 300 pitches this weekend was the result of season-long caution around deploying her too frequently and for too long.
While some workhorse primary starters banked 200 or more innings in the regular season, Krings has only thrown 171 — including the 25 from the regional.
“She hasn’t been overworked all year long, to get her to this point to be able to do what she did today,” Anderson said. “I know she’s healthy. She’s strong as an ox, so I know her body’s not going to break down.”
The Tigers are now on to the super regional, which is a best-of-three series against another regional winner. No. 10 Duke, the Atlantic Coast Conference champions, will visit Columbia for that matchup, with a spot in the Women’s College World Series on the line. The event is set to begin at 1 p.m. Friday.
Krings, in all likelihood, will start every game in that series — even if it goes three games, that’ll be a lighter workload than what she just endured.
“As far as we go, I’m ready to go,” Krings said.
She was on the last Missouri team to host a super regional, back when James Madison’s underdog run stormed past the Tigers in 2021. That run ended in disappointment, but Krings will have a heavy say in whether things are different during her senior year.
But first, there’s recovery to think about. Krings asked Anderson after the game for two days off to rest her arm, and Anderson didn’t start saying no to her ace then, either. And as Krings talked about diving into the ice bath that got her ready for Sunday, she smiled and turned to the practical matter of how to nurse an iron arm.
“I’m probably about to do the same thing,” she said.