Shaylee Ackerman, Trinity Cannon share how Texas A&M handled lengthy weather delay in SEC Tournament

Texas A&M softball had a brief trip to the SEC Tournament, playing — and losing to — South Carolina in the first round on Wednesday. And the trip would’ve been shorter if not for a four hour-plus long weather delay, which Aggies Shaylee Ackerman and Trinity Cannon explained cut into the flow of the game.

The Aggies lost, 1-0, in extra innings to the Gamecocks. After playing a regulation seven innings of scoreless ball, South Carolina played a run in the top of the eighth inning. Then lightning and rain sent both teams to seek shelter.

“We kind of waited — we waited here for a while to kind of play it by ear to kind of get what was the next move. Then we ended up on the bus,” said Ackerman, the starting pitcher for the Aggies. “But basically being able to keep our minds in the right place and not going everywhere else, knowing that we’re going to have to come back and finish this game.”

Dealing with a weather delay is a unique challenge due to the uncertain timing of it. At a minimum, a lightning delay requires 30 minutes without more to resume play. Rain and wet field conditions can be a much trickier set of conditions to navigate.

And it’s made more difficult when, as was the case for the Aggies on Wednesday, there will be very little game left to try and salvage a win.

Whenever the game resumed, they knew they’d need to lock in to get out of the top of the eighth with minimal damage before plating a run — all just to force another inning. However, Texas A&M couldn’t find whatever bit of juice it needed to tie or win the game.

“I think we just have to re-amp ourselves up. We were getting off the bus and stuff and getting going, having music going during BP and stuff. But we just have to have the motivation that we did at the beginning of the game,” Cannon said.

For the Gamecocks, the situation wasn’t all that different, albeit with the lead in hand. A few more insurance runs would’ve been nice, but with a 1-0 lead, it fell to relief pitcher Donnie Gobourne to close out the win for South Carolina.

She, too, made a point to stay as locked in as possible during the rain delay.

“It was kind of hard, honestly,” Gobourne said. “The entire time we were on our rain delay I was just thinking about staying locked in the entire time and trying not to be on my phone as much and just getting a lot of treatment as well. I think it was just having a good mentality. Always remaining optimistic and ready to go at it the next pitch, next at bat. Just remaining optimistic and just trusting in my defense and my offense.”