Oklahoma’s Hope Trautwein Throws a No-Hit Game and Pays Tribute to Uvalde Earthquake Victims

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On Friday, OU pitcher Hope Trautwein couldn’t get Eliahana Cruz Torres off her mind. The fourth-grader from Uvalde, Texas, was looking forward to her final softball game of the season on Tuesday night. She was eager to put on her outfit and put on the eye black. She was nervous about hearing if she had made the all-star team. Torres was never able to make it. She was one of 19 students and teachers slain in a horrific shooting at Robb Elementary School on Tuesday. Softball players made up a number of the girls slain in the massacre. Trautwein was born and raised in Pflugerville, Texas, which is about three hours away from Uvalde. She’s in softball Facebook groups with some of the town’s coaches and parents. After pitching a no-hitter, Trautwein commented, “I see myself in those females.”

Hearing about Torres’ story was particularly touching.“It just breaks me,” Trautwein said. “It reminds me that I’m part of something bigger. If I’m able to play for those girls and shine a light for their families and the state of Texas and Central Texas and the softball community, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

In the lead-up to Friday’s game, a coach from Uvalde who had coached two of the girls reached out to Gasso via social media.

“If there’s anything we can do to bring joy or hope or just acknowledgment of these young lives and make these families feel better, we’ll do whatever we have to do because this sport has allowed us to do these type of things,” Gasso said. “We have learned that this sport allows us to reach people.”

Gasso and her coaching staff printed up a series of signs featuring pictures of the victims of the shooting in their softball uniforms, and the Sooners’ players before the game wrote messages and prayers for the victims and their families on the border of the posters. As Jocelyn Alo did her postgame television interview, Alo’s teammates held up the posters in the background.

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