By Tommy Deas

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- Angel Bunner needed a team. She just wanted a chance.

The Chicago Bandits needed another arm, but they needed something more: someone who had hunger and desire, qualities they were lacking.

This is a story about how a dream came true, for a 26-year-old player who was living with her parents less than two months ago, and for a franchise that thought it could win it all even if it didn't have a winning record.

It happened Tuesday night, when the third-seeded Bandits upset the regular-season champion USSSA Pride, 2-1, in the decisive game of the National Pro Fastpitch Championship Series at Rhoads Stadium.

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Chicago (27-27) took two out of three from the Pride (40-15) to claim the Cowles Cup for the second year in a row. It did it on the strength of back-to-back home runs in the third inning by catcher Taylor Edwards and outfielder Brittany Cervantes, and on the grit of Bunner, a left-hander who had been cut before the previous season and overlooked by the league at the start of the 2016 campaign.

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Bunner had been a journeyman pitcher, playing for three teams. Out of the game for a full season, she moved in with her parents in Florida. But she didn't give up.

When the phone didn't ring, she picked it up and contacted friends around the league, trying to put the word out that she still wanted to play.

So the realization of her dream began with a few texts messages from NPF players to Mike Steuerwald, coach of the Bandits, telling him that she was still out there, still hoping.

Steuerwald had his own problems: Chicago was struggling in the wake of losing Monica Abbott, the top pitcher in the game, to the new Scarp Yard Dawgs franchise, which put together a six-year, million-dollar package unlike any seen before in softball to lure her away. Abbott''s departure left a void through the first month of the season.

"We just needed another piece," Steuerwald said, explaining that mostly the franchise was looking for another pitcher to eat up some innings and hopefully develop into a viable option in the lineup.

But the Bandits needed more than that.

"We weren't playing good softball at the time, so we needed to do something," the coach said. "At the point we were at in the season, it was we've got to take a shot and see what she can do and add to this team.

"For her, she's been out for a year, she's probably ready to go -- maybe not physically as much, but she wants to get after it again. And we needed a little bit of that on this team."

Meanwhile, Bunner needed to be needed after sitting out an entire season, unwanted by any pro team.

"It was hard," she said. "I love the sport and I'm dedicated to a team and I want a team to be dedicated to me, so it was really hard when I got released."
Her signing was announced on July 1, nearly two full years since she had thrown a pitch in a pro game. Things didn't come together immediately.

"I was ready to do it mentally," she said. "Physically, I can't say that I was completely ready. I used my first two games as more of spring training, which was probably not a good decision."

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She got beat up in those two games. She took a hard-luck loss to a walk-off home run that was carried over the fence by a strong wind in another. She won one decision.

The coaching staff knew she'd need time to shake off the rust, to pitch her way back into shape. She had a believer in team leader Cervantes, who had played in the Southeastern Conference at Kentucky when Bunner was pitching at Auburn -- at the time, not the national championship contender that it is today.

"I was actually excited she was on our team," Cervantes said, "because I didn't like facing her. Not at all."

Coming into the playoffs, she carried a 1-3 record. And Chicago decided to start her.

Against Abbott, the NPF Pitcher of the Year and league leader in strikeouts, earned run average and wins.

And Bunner, with the help of a lot of run support, won.

Two days later, she and Abbott faced off again. Bunner didn't factor in the decision -- won in relief by Shelby Turnier -- but she did what was asked of her.

Chicago knocked off the Scrap Yard Dawgs and came into the championship series with momentum and with newfound confidence in Bunner. She didn't play in either of the first two games against the Pride, but in the finale -- with the championship on the line -- Steuerwald handed her the ball and asked her to do what she had done in her two previous playoff starts: "We just trusted her to keep us in the game," he said.

Bunner felt the weight of the situation when she made her way to the stadium.

"When I got here today -- I'm not going to lie, I'm not normally nervous but I was extra-nervous," she said, "and I had a group of pitchers standing behind me and the first thing they said to me when we got here was, 'No matter what happens, we've got your back.'"

The plan was for Bunner to get through the fearsome Pride lineup once, and maybe throw to a couple of left-handed batters before the Bandits turned to the bullpen. Instead, she lasted six innings, battling through some tough situations and getting key outs. She only struck out one batter, and she gave up some hard shots among eight hits by the Pride, but she didn't crack.

She fought to keep the dream alive.

Only Kelly Kretschman, the NPF Player of the Year, who won the Triple Crown in leading the league in batting average, home runs and RBIs, was able to do any real damage. She hit a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to cut the lead to 2-1.

Bunner scraped her way through the sixth and turned the ball over to Shelby Turnier, who pitched a flawless seventh inning for the save.

What Bunner and the Bandits couldn't have conceived less than two months earlier became reality.

"It's a dream, so of course I would imagine it, but making it a reality was a lot different," she said.

It didn't come together until the very end. That's how it is with dreams.

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