She was told she couldn't play college softball — twice. She went through 10 rounds of chemotherapy this fall. Then she threw a perfect game 21 days after her last infusion, went 21-1 with a 0.57 ERA, and was drafted 3rd overall by the Oklahoma City Spark — becoming the first mid-major player in AUSL history to receive a Golden Ticket.Maya Johnson (Belmont University) sits down with Abby Alonzo on Out of Left Field for her most personal interview yet.In this episode:- How Maya was medically disqualified at Pitt and told she'd never play — then heard the same thing at Bowling Green- What it was like going through chemotherapy for lupus while still training three to four days a week- Why she turned down $380,000 in NIL money to stay at Belmont- The moment she almost quit chemo — and what stopped her- The Jessica Mendoza golden ticket surprise and what she actually said when she walked out- Her identity outside of softball, working in the pediatric cardiac ICU, and why she chose nursing- Advice for young athletes on recruiting, the transfer portal, and when to follow your heart over the money- What it means to be the first mid-major player drafted in AUSL history — and what she wants that to say to the next generation━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙️ ABOUT MAYA JOHNSON━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Maya Johnson is a redshirt senior left-handed pitcher from Columbia Station, Ohio. A four-year starter at Belmont University, she is a two-time Missouri Valley Conference Pitcher of the Year, two-time NFCA First Team All-American, and the NCAA's active career strikeout leader. In 2026 she led Division I in ERA (0.57), strikeouts (381), shutouts (14), and strikeout-to-walk ratio (11.91). She was selected 3rd overall by the Oklahoma City Spark in the 2026 AUSL College Draft — the first mid-major player in league history to receive a Golden Ticket. She is also pursuing a doctorate in nursing.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━0:00 – Intro & Welcome0:37 – Season ending at the Tuscaloosa Regional — how she's processing it1:35 – Maya tells her full story: Pitt, Bowling Green, finding Belmont4:15 – Being medically disqualified twice and refusing to accept it5:53 – How she found Belmont and committed less than a month before school started7:21 – The transfer portal this offseason — why she almost left again9:38 – Seeing the Instagram ad for Belmont's hybrid doctoral program and pulling out of the portal11:30 – The lupus flare, 10 rounds of chemo, and training through it12:57 – Abby shares her own experience with her dad's lymphoma and chemo14:01 – What softball gave her during chemotherapy — community, purpose, and a reason to keep going16:17 – Writing handwritten letters to every teammate at the end of the season17:28 – How rejection made her better and what her parents instilled in her18:53 – The loyalty to Belmont and turning down $380K in NIL20:39 – What coaches said in the portal that made her cry and realize she needed to go back22:28 – Advice for young athletes on recruiting and the transfer portal25:32 – The importance of identity outside of softball and the illness narrative27:24 – Why she chose nursing and the nurses who changed her life during her diagnosis28:11 – Her tattoo: "If you can't see the sunshine, be the sunshine"29:13 – What it means to be the first mid-major AUSL draft pick and growing the game31:32 – Fear as a lie and the gut feeling she still gets before medical clearance calls34:21 – Work ethic, intentionality, and what she'd tell a 12-year-old36:42 – Fighting competitively as a kid and winning a bronze medal at the world championships38:49 – What she's most proud of in her entire journey39:18 – What 15-year-old Maya would say looking at where she is now40:11 – Outro━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙️ ABOUT OUT OF LEFT FIELD━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Out of Left Field is a softball and baseball media podcast hosted by Abby Alonzo. We go beyond the highlight reel — real conversations with real athletes about the journey, the grind, and everything the box score doesn't show. New episodes dropping regularly.📲 Follow Out of Left Field:Instagram: @olfmediaTikTok: @outofleftfieldmediaYouTube: @outofleftfieldmedia📲 Follow Abby:Instagram: @abbigailalonzoTikTok: @abbyalonz0📲 Follow Maya:Instagram: @johnson_maya━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#OutOfLeftField #MayaJohnson #Softball #AUSL #CollegeSoftball ...
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