Nebraska ace Jordy Bahl suffered season-ending ACL injury in opener

On3 imageby:Kaiden Smith02/13/24

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Some devastating news came out of Lincoln on Tuesday as Nebraska softball star pitcher Jordy Bahl announced that she suffered a season-ending ACL injury in the team’s first game of the 2024 season.

Bahl suffered the injury in Nebraska’s game against Washington in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for the Puerto Vallarta Challenge, with her left leg giving out while delivering a pitch in the third inning of the matchup.

She exited game one of the four-game challenge due to the injury and did not participate in the final three games of the Cornhuskers’ trip. Not knowing the extent of her injury until the team returned to Lincoln where she was evaluated and learned that she had torn her left ACL and will miss the remainder of the season.

Bahl revealed the news in a heartfelt Twitter post on Tuesday that can be seen below.

“In game 1 of opening weekend, in Puerto Vallarta, I experienced an injury to my acl that is going to cause me to support the Red Team in a different way than anticipated for the 2024 season,” Bahl wrote. “With a heart thankful for God’s plan and timing, I will be red shirting this year, and looking forward to a season of growth and learning from a different point of view. I’m thankful for the support of my family, friends, coaches, and staff. I’m truly blessed to have so many wonderful and loving people in my life. I’m not going anywhere. See you in 2025. GO BIG RED”

Bahl’s season-ending injury puts a dark cloud over her highly anticipated return to her home state, transferring to the Cornhuskers from Oklahoma this offseason after helping deliver the Sooners back-to-back national championships as their ace the last two seasons.

With Oklahoma Bahl earned two First Team All-American honors, two All-Big 12 First Team selections, the 2022 Big 12 Freshman of the Year award, the 2023 Big 12 Pitcher of the Year award, and the 2023 Most Outstanding Player of the Women’s College World Series.

The Papillion, Nebraska native was looking to achieve the same success with the Cornhuskers in her debut season with the program. But she’ll unfortunately have to wait until the 2025 season to do so, but can redshirt for the 2024 season and will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with the team.

“Home has always been super important to me, and so even when I went down to OU it was hard because I never wanted to leave home. This place and these people mean so much to me and so it would just be so cool to just capitalize on what this team can do and have little girls dream of playing for this program,” Bahl said in her introductory press conference.

Husker Online’s Abby Barmore contributed to this report