Alyssa Denham Returns to Softball with AUSL After Battling Life-Changing Injury

But in those last two years, excelling with AU, she was battling something much bigger.

While pitching on a fractured back with a slipped vertebra and herniated disk, absolutely nothing was going to get in the way of Denham taking the mound. 

Not even throwing up in between innings, a numb left leg, or carrying the mental and physical load, strike after strike.  

Denham and her doctors knew the end was near. Two weeks before the start of the 2024 AU season, she received word that if she wanted to save her health, she’d have to have a spinal fusion and a cage put in her lower back. 

If Denham was going to have to hang up the cleats, she was going to give 110 percent no matter what. 

“This season has tested my limits more than ever,” Denham wrote in an Instagram post. “Two weeks before the Athletes Unlimited Championship Season, I received the news no athlete wants to hear. All the hours of training and preparing have taken a toll on my body. I have been struggling and refusing to quit. Softball has made me a competitor for life.” 

The Volts lost two arms in Sam Landry and Payton Gottshall and a veteran leader in Jessi Warren during the Expansion Draft, but regained those attributes through Denham. Ally Carda and Aliyah Binford were also added to the roster, adding excess depth next to Denham. 

Denham’s fight through adversity is certainly inspiring, and her AUSL debut this summer is not one to be missed.