The sports replay review era reached an embarrassing new low on Saturday during a college softball game featuring the SEC's Florida Gators and Arkansas Razorbacks. With the score tied at six at the end of the 7th, the game went to extra innings.
With two runners on in the top of the 8th, Arkansas' Karlie Davison bunted. As she ran to first the home plate umpire Tom Meyer thought she touched the ball and threw up his arms to signal the play dead as Florida catcher Jocelyn Erickson fielded the ball cleanly and threw Davison out at first.
Then there was a 25-minute delay as the umpiring crew consulted a physical rule book, the SEC replay center in Birmingham and the NCAA office.
A first for everything @ContextSoftball pic.twitter.com/eC1MEWyvbd
— meags (@meagfrazier) April 5, 2025
All that so that they could confirm a bad call and reward the wrong team.
The stoppage began with about a two-minute review where umpires spoke with the fine folks in Birmingham who changed the call on the field and awarded first base to Davison despite the fact that she had been thrown out. Florida coach Tim Walton complained so the umpires huddled. And spoke with gameday operations. And Birmingham again. And then eventually the NCAA.
You can watch the brief recap of the events in this video and then about 20-minutes of the delay in real time in the video below that, which gives you a chance to see how bored the fans were and how confused the announcers were by just about ever moment of this delay.
After the final ruling was handed down Walton quickly got himself ejected, threw his hat, kicked dirt on the mound. You know, all the classics.
Tim Walton, Florida Softball coach, sat through nearly 30 minutes of a delay for the NCAA to make a call before getting tossedpic.twitter.com/FYar5IpgGq
— Collin Wilson (@_Collin1) April 5, 2025
When the game resumed the Gators got out of the bases loaded jam and eventually won on a walk-off grand slam in the bottom of the 9th.
WALK-OFF GRAND SLAM FOR #33. x @korbeotis
— Gators Softball (@GatorsSB) April 5, 2025
📺: https://t.co/dEToohjubQ (ESPNU) | #GoGators pic.twitter.com/tBsxMMmcXo
The lesson? Ball don't lie... but it sure takes its sweet time?
More on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Coach Quickly Ejected After Sitting Through 25-Minute SEC Softball Replay Review .
