WARRIORMIKE
Pro-Staff Everything
The ump was uneducated. Not a drop 3 strike on the transfer.
There has to be something missing from this story. You later say, 'That's what EVERYONE thought,' but the umpire and the other team's coach and bench apparently thought otherwise. We need video.
Another reason NOT to refer to it as a dropped 3rd strike. Call it "3rd strike not caught." The first question that needs to be answered, "did she catch the pitch before it hit the ground?" If yes, it doesn't matter what happens afterward.
"3rd strike not caught" is equally inaccurate. Because it was "caught".
There is no 3-4 word phrase I can think of that would be intuitively obvious, covering all possibilities, short of the full wording of the rule itself. Maybe "Dropped or Grounded 3rd Strike", but that is 5 words.