This sicko picked the wrong jogger to grope.
A tough-as-nails New York University softball player courageously punched down a creep who grabbed her breasts while she was jogging in Chelsea last week — hitting him so hard she broke her hand.
The 5-foot-9 Iowan was running at 4:30 p.m. around 20th Street near Eighth Avenue, a path she’s run almost every day since she moved a year ago to the Big Apple from Bettendorf, a small town about 200 miles from Des Moines.
“As I was crossing the street, I noticed him reach out for me, and he grabbed my chest and didn’t let go. My fight or flight kicked in,” Alexa Very told The Post of the terrifying Sept. 19 episode.
She chose fight.
The sophomore first baseman,19, socked the bald, middle-aged attacker twice in the jaw.
He crumpled to the ground, allowing her to get away.
A grand slam.
“All I could think at that moment was that I needed to do anything to stop it from going further. I needed to protect myself,” she recalled.
“I don’t think he was expecting me to punch him,” she proudly proclaimed.
If the creep said anything during the assault, Very didn’t know, as Toby Keith’s “Should Have Been a Cowboy” was blasting in her AirPods.
It took an adrenaline-pumped Very a few minutes to realize her right hand was throbbing and her knuckles bleeding.
Very said she called her dad “to ask if I did the right thing, because I can’t hold a bat now.
“And he told me that it was the best reason to not be able to hold the bat or throw a softball for a while.”
An NYU trainer cleaned Very’s battered hand and referred her to an urgent care, where a doctor found two bone bruises and a hairline fracture.
Very’s hand remains in a splint, and — despite her heroics — she’s struggling emotionally.
“I find that I’m much more paranoid after what happened,” she said this week, adding she hasn’t been able to sleep through the night since the assault.
On Wednesday, a random man stepping in her direction on the sidewalk was enough to send her into a panic attack, she said, leaving her unable to make it to her classes for the rest of the day.
Very has found refuge on TikTok, where she has been posting videos chronicling the incident and her healing journey.
“Holy wow. I am so glad you’re safe and a certified badass,” reads one reply to her post, which has amassed more than 3,000 “likes.”
“I never thought something like this would happen to me, but I was wrong. So if I can help one person be more aware that this could happen to them – and that it’s okay to fight back and protect yourself – then it would have been worth it,” she told The Post.
Very, who filed a police report and spoke to detectives from the NYPD’s Special Victims Unit following the attack, is “holding out hope” that cops will nab the creep.
As of Friday, no arrests had been made in the case.
An NYPD spokesperson said the department takes “sexual assault and rape cases extremely seriously.”
Additional reporting by Tina Moore.
