A Look at Gia Rodoni’s Historic Weekend

In case you missed it, Baylor softball had an outstanding weekend at Getterman Stadium in sweeping all three of their games in the Waco Regional and advancing to the Tucson Super Regional. The Lady Bears are now two wins away from the program's 4th appearance in the Women's College World Series.

But without a doubt, the highlight of the weekend was the work of sophomore RHP Gia Rodoni, who threw her first career no-hitter in Baylor's opener on Friday night against Kent State. Then after the Lady Bears won on Saturday to advance to the regional final, Rodoni threw a second consecutive no-hitter Sunday after against James Madison to send Baylor to the Super Regionals.

Just to reiterate that point, SHE THREW TWO NO-HITTERS IN A ROW. THAT'S PRETTY HARD TO DO. 14 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs. As Kendall noted in this morning's DBR, it's the first time a pitcher has thrown consecutive no-no's in the NCAA Softball Tournament since 2010 and only the 8th time it has ever happened in the tournament. And the second no-hitter was especially impressive as it came against a 52-8 James Madison team that came into the weekend with the best team batting average of any team in the country.

There is certainly quite a bit of credit that should be given to the Lady Bears' error-free work defensively as well. In the two no-hitters, opposing batters were 0 for 41 against Rodoni, but there were only five strikeouts in the two games combined. This means that an opponent put a ball in play 36 times and made an out all 36 times. That's insane in baseball but possibly even more insane in softball where the basepaths are just 60 feet apart. Jessie Scroggins had a highlight show all to herself in center field in Sunday's game:

Baylor will face #2 Arizona on the road in the Super Regional beginning Friday night. You'll certainly want to tune in to see how long Rodoni can extend her hitless streak, which is currently at 16 innings dating back to the Big 12 Tournament.