COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Utah pitcher Montana Fouts and the Talons put an exclamation mark on the Athletes Unlimited Softball League season – again.
Fouts threw a complete game, scattering eight singles as the Talons rolled to a 6-1 victory over the Chicago Bandits to sweep the AUSL’s best-of-three championship series at Texas A&M’s Davis Diamond on Sunday afternoon. It was a repeat of the league’s inaugural championship series in 2025 that ended with Fouts and the Talons beating the Bandits 1-0.
ATHLETES UNLIMITED SOFTBALL LEAGUE
Fouts’ teammates made things much easier this time, with a trio of home runs.
“We came out and hit today, that’s the difference between this year and last year,” said Utah first baseman Bri Ellis, who hit one of the homers. “I feel like when we’re playing the Bandits, it’s always a pitchers’ duel. And we’re just trying to get the monkey off our pitchers’ backs and give them a break.”
Utah’s Jadelyn Allchin hit a two-run homer run in the first inning and that was enough offense for Fouts. Utah added a pair of unearned runs in the fourth inning. Ellis and Sahvanna Jaquish added solo homers to make it 6-0. The Bandits scored in the final inning. Fouts walked the leadoff batter, her lone free pass of the game, which made her mad.
“Montana’s talking about walking the first batter and it’s like, we came out and hit for you today,” Ellis said. “Because how many games did you have us on your back? It was about time for us to pick up and show up for her.”
The Bandits had eight hits but couldn’t get the big one, because the Talons also played solid defense. Left fielder Allchin ran down a ball in the alley and made a diving catch on a sinking line drive. Center fielder Jayda Coleman also made a running catch.
“I thought we had some good barrels,” Bandits coach Shonda Stanton said. “But gosh, they got a tremendously fast outfield. I would say a lot of teams we played, some of those balls that we put a charge into the outfield probably dropped and we’re getting extra bases. Not with the Talons’ outfield.”
The Talons’ three outfielders also combined for half of the team’s 10 hits.
“I do think that this was one of our best compete games,” said Talons’ coach Cindy Ball-Malone, adding that the players were swinging free and easy in batting practice. “You could tell it’s time, and we’ve been talking about it. Why not just keep rolling it over?”
“We end up with eight hits and no production,” Stanton said. “You tell me we have eight hits, we’re gonna have 10 or 12 runs. But that’s how good she is.”
Fouts, who led the league in strikeouts, had only four on Sunday, but she never allowed back-to-back batters to reach until the last inning. The Bandits couldn’t lay off her riseball out of the zone, Stanton said.
“I could feel in the middle of the game I was a little bit more intentional with locations,” Fouts said. “They’re obviously a good hitting team and they’re going to take advantage of any mistake. So just kind of locking in a little bit more on locations in the middle of the game, that helped kind of set the tone.”
The right-hander tweaked things because she’s faced the Bandits so many times, Ball-Malone said.
“Today we went in with a different adjustment,” Ball-Malone said. “I’m not going to give up all her information, but her best pitch she threw less than maybe her number four pitch today. And so for everyone out there, what she did was absolutely incredible.”
The Bandits got some good swings, but the Talons’ defense was great and the offense fed off that.
“All of that was amazing,” Ball-Malone said. “It was art, really.”
The start of the game was delayed a few minutes as Chicago starting pitcher Kat Sandercock wanted the grounds crew to work on the area around her push-off foot. But it was the Talons who got off to a fast start.
Leadoff batter Coleman blasted a towering shot down the right-field line that was well beyond the fence, but it was just foul. She rounded second base celebrating the effort before she knew it was foul, though the umpires did huddle to confirm the call. Undaunted, Coleman fouled off two more two-strike pitches before lacing a shot into left field for a single. Allchin, who attempted a bunt on the first pitch, blasted a shot over the right-field fence.
The Talons’ Hannah Flippen had a one-out bunt single in the fourth inning that led to two runs. Aliyah Andrews hit a soft grounder to Chicago third baseman Sami Williams, who air-mailed the throw over second base, allowing Flippen to score. Allchin added a two-out double to score Andrews.
The homer in the fifth inning by Ellis, the AUSL Comeback Player of the Year, cleared the huge video board beyond left field. Jaquish added another solo shot in the seventh inning that hit near the top of the video board.
