Junior outfielder Alix Johnson awaits a pitch from an East Carolina pitcher on March 2. Johnson is famous in Tempe for her batting abilities but is famous on the Internet for her highlight catch. (Photo by Abhiram Chandrashekar)ASU junior outfielder Alix Johnson may be known more for her offense than her defense.
In 2012, she was an All-American with a .395 batting average and 13 homeruns. Still, Johnson takes a lot of pride in her defensive ability, and she said it helped her get out of an early-season slump.
This year, her defensive play has proved just as stellar as her offense. A defensive play she made over the weekend sent the Internet buzzing.
Here was the situation: ASU trailed UCLA by a run in the sixth inning. Sophomore first baseman/pitcher Ally Carda, one of UCLA’s best hitters, stepped to the plate.
Carda hit a softball into deep center field, hoping to extend the Bruins lead.
Johnson retreated and ran out of real estate at the warning track. She leaped into the air and came back with a softball in her glove, robbing Carda of a home run.
“At first I didn’t think it was going to be that far to the wall,” Johnson said. “I thought it was going to be a routine fly ball to the warning track. I kept going farther back and farther back and I was like, ‘Is this really going to go out?’”
The UCLA crowd cheered initially because it thought Carda hit a home run. Then it saw Johnson throw the ball back onto the field and was stunned.
Johnson received a lot of praise from her teammates for the run-saving catch when she returned to the dugout.
“They were freaking out, especially the outfielders,” Johnson said. “(Juniors) Bailey (Wigness) and Mary (Spiel) came up to me and they said, ‘You’re a beast; that was amazing. How’d you do that?’ My heart was just pumping, but once I got to the dugout, my teammates congratulated me.”
The sensational defensive play has gone viral, with more than 5,000 hits and counting on YouTube.
The video spread like wildfire on the Internet, and even caught the eye of ESPN’s Jessica Mendoza, a softball analyst and Gold Medalist.
Amazing!! "@UCLASoftball: @ASUSoftball@NCAAsoftball best catches I've ever seen. Where u at @SportsCenter#sctop10http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R__y-xxxU-I …"
Still, Johnson remains humble and credited the catch to practice.
“The video probably seems a lot cooler than it actually was,” Johnson said. “I was camped under there and I just had great timing. I have some type of hops, obviously. It was kind of athleticism and also we practice robbing balls off the wall all the time.”
Another factor into the difficulty of the play was doing it on the road, in a different team’s ballpark. Johnson said UCLA’s wall is higher than ASU’s.
“Before the game all the outfielders inspect the outfield, the dirt, how tall the wall is, how the ball is going to bounce off the wall, so I had a good understanding about how the ball is going to be played off the wall over there,” Johnson said.
Until coming to ASU, Johnson played center field all her life. She primarily played elsewhere in the outfield in her first two seasons. Now, she’s back in center field.
“It’s kind of like home,” Johnson said of center. “I like that you have to cover more ground, and you’re also a leader and general out there. (The) right and left field(ers) kind of look up to you. I like the feel. I like the look from that angle. I love center.”
Reach the reporter at Justin.Janssen@asu.edu
