An Oregon softball player managed to hit her teammate in the eye with a clump of dirt in one of the wilder sports flukes you will see.
Oregon pitcher Lyndsey Grein fired a strike during the 9th inning of Oregon’s College World Series game against Ole Miss at Devon Park in Oklahoma City, Ok. on Friday, but catcher Emma Cox seemed oddly hurt by the pitch. Replays showed that Grein’s cleat had kicked up a clump of dirt, and her pitch managed to hit it in midair and send pieces of it exploding everywhere — including Cox’s eye.
This is one of the wildest thing I've ever seen – Oregon pitcher hits a clump of dirt that flew off her cleat with the pitch and it explodes in mid-air pic.twitter.com/ESRseFmh7t
— CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) May 31, 2025
The game was briefly stopped as Cox tried to get the dirt out of her eye. Oregon wound up winning 6-5 in 10 innings to advance and keep their season alive.
The odds of something like this happen are ridiculous. It is one thing for the dirt debris to get kicked up, but the chances of the ball hitting it head-on and going directly into a teammate’s eye are even longer.
Cox will be tremendously relieved that Grein was not throwing as hard as this pitcher was. That would have been even worse.
