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Danielle Watson of Osceola, a Penn High School graduate pitching for Florida State, was given the ball for Game 1 against No. 1 Oklahoma on June 8, 2021, her first start since May 8: she retired the first eleven Sooners in order, held the most prolific offence in college softball history hitless into the fourth while her teammates built a 7–0 lead, and won the game 8–4, named ESPN's player of the game. Oklahoma took Game 2, 6–2. On the afternoon of June 10, in the winner-take-all Game 3 — the first time in the event's history all seventeen games were needed — Florida State went back to Watson to start the deciding game of the national championship, on national television, in Oklahoma's home park. She struck out two in a first inning opened by a Jocelyn Alo home run and was relieved in the third; Oklahoma won 5–1 and the title, two games to one. The event's civic weight for Osceola is exactly that arc: for three June nights the town's name was spoken, in the contemporary press's own framing, as the place the deciding game's starting pitcher came from — “the fireballer from Osceola,” in the Tribune-carried account's words, who “couldn't help but remember where she came from” as she stood in the circle. No other single sporting night in the record reached carries the town that way.
Sources: NCAA.com live record of the 2021 WCWS championship series (Watson's Game 1 and Game 3 starts; the 5–1 final). South Bend Tribune account carried by Gator Sports, July 7, 2021 (“Penn grad Danielle Watson helps key FSU's run” — the Osceola framing quoted). This build's Notable People — Watson at profile size, cross-referenced.