Bri Ellis walked it off Saturday night, a home run off Karlyn Pickens that stamped a 5-4 win for the Utah Talons. It felt like a moment that had been waiting to happen. After a 2025 rookie season full of struggles that left her a .186 hitter, 2026 has brought out the Ellis everyone knows.
Ellis is currently slashing .433/.553/1.000 with four home runs, 11 RBIs and six runs scored, and that bounce back not only speaks to her resilience, but also reflects the mindset of this Talons team.
For most of the two-game series, the Blaze had the Talons right where they wanted them. They took game one and nearly snatched the second, until Utah’s fight could not be denied.
“Wow. I mean, they’re just such a great team,” Ellis said after game two. “They have great pitching, a great staff, great coaches. They were kind of figuring out ways to get around us, and early on it worked most of the time, but we kept finding ways to score runs in our own way. It didn’t always have to be a big hit, ironically. We understood going into this game that it was going to take the little things, the singles. Coach Bear gave us a little pep talk, telling us it’s going to take all of us, every way we can.”
That mindset is what sent the Talons out of Dumke Family Softball Stadium for the last time this season with a win. Jayda Coleman had the Blaze’s number, finishing the series 4 for 7 with two runs scored, while Jordan Woolery and Jadelyn Allchin delivered hits in the spots that mattered.
“I think it was just a tough series,” Woolery said. “We didn’t play our best softball yesterday, but I felt like we wanted to come out today and play for the fans and hold it down in this last home series, and we did a great job. The offense as a whole really stuck together. We had a lot of talk in between innings, and I think that made us stronger throughout the game.”
Woolery was a great responder Saturday. When Carolina made a move, she answered, both in the first and third innings. Her fight at the plate in the first led to an 11-pitch at-bat that ended with an RBI groundout. She did not reach base, but she did her part. In the third, Woolery answered Reese Atwood’s second-inning two-RBI double with an RBI double of her own to keep the Talons in step with the Blaze.
As for Allchin, Friday did not go the way she would have liked, and Saturday started the same way, with an 0-for-2 start. On defense, she also lost track of an Atwood ball early that sailed over her head. She wanted that one back.
Then, after a pep talk from head coach Cindy Ball-Malone, something ignited inside Allchin. That tracks with something Allchin and I talked about in a previous conversation, about just being where your feet are. She wants to be the best she can for the team, and that drives her success.
“Her first two at-bats were not her, and just talking to her, I think that’s what’s so big about her,” Ball-Malone said. “I said, hey, you have the ability to flip it like that. And then all of a sudden, bam, bam, she’s hitting the ball like she can. Man, it makes it so easy to coach her. She’s just on fire.”
In the end, it came back to Ellis and the swing that ended it. When the two met in college, Ellis went 3 for 10 against Pickens with a double, three runs scored, and four strikeouts. Pickens had the better side of those matchups, and Ellis knew it.
Then Ellis struck out against her in the bottom of the sixth Friday night, and again in the first inning Saturday.
“She’s basically had my number for, I don’t know, two or three years now,” Ellis said. “I think I’d gotten one barrel off her before this, that’s it.”
“We were both in the SEC and she’s just fantastic,” Ellis said. “She’s such a good pitcher, has great command, and she loves to get those swinging misses. She’s really hard to get when you’re down in the count against her, really hard to get a hit off of. But I’m just glad I stuck to my plan.”
That plan was to not let Pickens get ahead. So Ellis jumped on the first pitch she saw and demolished it over the left-field wall, taking the count out of the equation before Pickens could work her. Saturday’s walk-off was a statement in more ways than one. She conquered Pickens in a major moment, this time at the pro level. Also, the joy and the total excitement she showed rounding the bases said it all about where Ellis has come this season compared to last.
