CORVALLIS — When Oregon State run-ruled No. 12 Kentucky in the second game of the 2016 season, it also marked the first gem of Meehra Nelson's college career.
The freshman right-hander allowed two hits in six shutout innings and tallied five strikeouts in her debut as a collegiate starting pitcher.
Yet Nelson did not fully grasp what she had accomplished. And perhaps that's a good thing.
"She didn't even know that they were anything to be reckoned with," Beavers junior first baseman Natalie Hampton recalled of that Kentucky game. "If that's how she needs to be, then that's how she needs to be and I will back her 110 percent in that.