That’s what Kelsi Dunne was thinking when people kept approaching her after last weekend’s Southeastern Conference Tournament championship-game victory over LSU.
The University of Alabama softball team’s junior ace was seen on television with blood flowing from a finger on her pitching hand. ESPN announcers surmised that she had a blister that had burst.
Actually, it was a hangnail.
“The funny thing was, “What’s wrong with your finger,”‘ because they showed it on TV,” Dunne said. “I had a hangnail and I bit it in the dugout and it started bleeding. That’s what the problem was.”
While there was no blister, Dunne does have a callus about half the size of a pencil eraser on her index finger, but that’s not uncommon. The callus has formed through years of pitching, a result of her grip.
“It’s been here since my junior year in high school,” she said. “It goes away in the offseason because I don’t pitch as much, but definitely works back up.”
Dunne reports that she is fine and ready for the NCAA Tuscaloosa Regional. Head coach Patrick Murphy, by the way, announced Thursday that freshman Lauren Sewell will pitch the first-round game against Alcorn State.
Without specifically saying so, Murphy believes Sewell is similar in style to Ole Miss pitchers who shut down Alcorn State last week, and that she can have the same kind of success. Also without saying so, he can rest Dunne for the second and third days of the regional by utilizing Sewell while also giving the rookie some postseason experience.
With Dunne pitching all three games in the SEC Tournament last week, she is postseason-tested and has shown the stamina and fortitude that Alabama will need to work its way back to the Women’s College World Series.