In medieval England, bakers were at risk of flogging or humiliation via the pillory if they sold underweight bread — a serious crime at the time. In order to avoid this risk, they began to throw in an extra loaf to orders, thus creating the “baker’s dozen” as a shorthand for the number 13.

However, when the lowly bakers of the English feudal plains birthed the expression, they couldn’t have imagined it would be used over six centuries later — let alone used to describe a single inning of a softball game.

But No. 15 Texas A&M softball cooked up a decadent second inning, scoring 13 runs to avoid any form of punishment and trounce over UConn in a 17-3 run-rule win in its first game of the College Station Regional.

“Tremendous job overall, especially in the batter’s box,” Ford said. “We came out, executed our game plan, kept our foot on the gas pedal. I think that’s what I’m most happy about. … When we do things like that it’s because we are understanding the process and not worrying about results.”

With senior right-handed pitcher Sidne Peters throwing gas from the circle and picking up seven strikeouts in only three innings of work, it was A&M’s bats that turned the spark into an all-consuming conflagration.

After being 1-for-10 on her last trips to the batter’s box, sophomore catcher Ariel Kowalewski sent a single into left field, which was quickly followed by sophomore center fielder Kelsey Mathis reaching on a fielder’s choice to put two runners on.

Sophomore shortstop KK Dement looked like the Dement of yesteryear on a two-RBI double lasered to right center. After launching 16 home runs as a rookie, the infielder had been in a sophomore slump before her floodgates-opening knock, failing to pick up a hit since April 26.

From there it became a bubble-fueled fever dream. Dement and sophomore left fielder Paislie Allen scored on passed balls and senior second baseman Tallen Edwards brought the score to 5-0 with an RBI single.

Once the heart of A&M’s lineup loaded the bases with a hit-by-pitch and a single, Kowalewski was back in the box. Hitting .500 with the bases loaded entering the game, the Richmond native hammered a 226-foot grand slam to send a flurry of bubbles into the air.

“My first at-bat [senior designated player Micaela Wark] was on base, like move her over, do your job, pass the bat,” Kowalewski said. “Second at-bat helped with my confidence a little bit because I swung at a ball, and I got it out there. So I was like, ‘You can put your bat on a ball.’”

After a pitching change to redshirt junior RHP Sydnee Koosh, Mathis sent her very first offering to right field for a wall-scraping home run that made it 10-0. With bubble launchers surely running dry in Davis Diamond, Dement made sure to further drain the supply, hitting a 242-foot moon ball for back-to-back-to-back jacks and an 11-0 advantage.

For good measure, senior third baseman Kennedy Powell’s RBI single and a bases-loaded hit-by-pitch to junior first baseman Mya Perez wrapped up a program Regional record 13-run inning in which 19 batters had at-bats.

Perez went on to hit a home run in the fourth inning to bring her even with Wark’s team lead of 19, before Wark promptly hit one of her own during the next at-bat to make it 17-2.

Following the second inning, the rest of the affair was merely a formality, as UConn hit a solo home run off the bat of the superb senior 2B Savannah Ring and picked up two consolation runs in the fifth.

The performance might be deja vu for the 12th Man, as A&M won a similarly dominant 18-0 game against Saint Francis last year in the Regional before crashing out of the tournament against Liberty. But Ford — and her daughter — noticed something different today.

“My daughter was in the dugout with me, and she was like, ‘Mom, remember the first game you weren’t very happy, our energy wasn’t very good,’ and I didn’t remember that,” Ford said. “ … I love our intensity, I love the fact that we didn’t give in at any point in time. … Those are the things that I really look at instead of how many runs and those things.”

Ford mentioned that after A&M’s one-and-done performance in the SEC Tournament, she was glad to see them put a hard week of practice to the plate.

“The girls will tell you I hate fun,” Ford said. “Like what’s fun? Winning is fun to me. But really dominating and executing at a high level, that’s what’s really fun to me, that’s what drives me. … I want us to be the best version of yourself. That’s what’s fun. … This group gets it.”

After the dominant performance, A&M will have to wait to find out its next opponent. The Aggies will play the winner of a game between the Arizona State Sun Devils and the McNeese State Cowgirls. First pitch will be at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 16.