The Elon Phoenix pulled off a rare double when the baseball team’s Aidan Stieglitz combined with two relievers for a no-hitter shortly after the softball team’s Anna Dew pitched a perfect game.
Saturday’s gems put the 7,000-student private school in North Carolina in the spotlight as stat geeks pored through record books to see if or when a school had ever had two pitching performances of such magnitude occur on the same day. No one has come up with the answer, though ESPN reported it definitely hasn’t happened in the past three years.
“I was primarily a pitcher in college myself, so I can appreciate the effort,” said athletic director Jennifer Strawley, who played softball at Penn in the 1990s. “It doesn’t happen every day that you see a perfect game or a no-hitter and to have both on the same day. You also recognize it’s a total team effort and to get to that place, there are plays made behind them that led to the pitchers being able to enjoy that moment.”
Dew struck out six and threw just 79 pitches in an 8-0 win over Charleston Southern that ended after six innings because of the run rule. Dew’s perfect game was Elon’s first since 2022 and the season highlight for a team out to a 4-14 start after winning the Coastal Athletic Association Tournament and qualifying for an NCAA regional last season.
Stieglitz, a freshman making his first start, carried a perfect game into the eighth inning in a 3-0 win over Fairfield. He issued a two-out walk for Fairfield’s only baserunner. Mike Staiano got the final out of the eighth and RJ Latkowski pitched a clean ninth to finish Elon’s first no-hitter since 2017.
Strawley said she is on hand for most baseball and softball games but was out of town with the men’s and women’s basketball teams. She said she watched the perfect game and no-hitter on her phone.
“It’s just a really special moment for the student-athletes, for our coaches and our institution as a whole to have something like two unbelievable performances in the same day lead to a little bit of publicity for us,” she said.
In the polls
UCLA (9-2), LSU (11-1) and Texas (11-0) remain the top three teams in the D1Baseball.com rankings. UCLA and LSU are the top two by Baseball America with Mississippi State (11-1) third.
The Bruins dropped a midweek game to San Diego State before turning in the best weekend nationally by beating three ranked opponents from the Southeastern Conference in Arlington, Texas. They were dominant in wins of 12-5 over Tennessee and 11-1 over Texas A&M before edging Mississippi State 8-7 in 10 innings.
LSU beat Dartmouth twice and Northeastern once, all at home. Texas knocked off Coastal Carolina, Baylor and Ohio State, all in Houston, and are among three unbeaten teams with New Mexico (12-0) and Southern California (11-0).
Epic showdown
UCLA’s win over Mississippi State on Sunday could go down as the best game of the regular season.
The highly anticipated matchup more than lived up to its billing. Roch Cholowsky’s two-run, two-out homer in the ninth inning tied it 5-all and pinch-hitter Aidan Espinoza’s two-run triple was the key hit in the 10th. Easton Hawk was nails in relief, working out of a bases-loaded situation with one out in the ninth and retiring three of the last four batters in the 10th after Reed Stallman’s homer made it a one-run game.
“An instant classic,” UCLA coach John Savage said, according to D1Baseball. “They’re really good, and we were up, and then we were down, and it looked like down to the last out, then you’ve got your shortstop (Cholowsky) doing some remarkable things, man. I mean, I don’t know what to say. I’ve seen it before, but that one was pretty special.”
Cleanup spot
Florida won 7-2 and 8-4 at in-state rival Miami to continue its dominance in the series. The third game was canceled because of inclement weather Sunday. The Gators have won five straight series and 11 of the last 12 against Miami, including six in a row in Coral Gables since 2014. … Georgia Tech’s Ryan Zuckerman has four home runs, three coming in Sunday’s 14-6 win over Northwestern. Kollin Ritchie went deep three times for Oklahoma State in a 20-0 rout of Sam Houston State on Saturday. … Arkansas State’s 12-4 win over Arkansas last Tuesday marked the Red Wolves’ first win in seven games against the Razorbacks since 1947.
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