After coming up short in her first two appearances of the season, Tiger pitcher Chelsea Thomas finally broke through in a big way on Wednesday. Thomas tossed the first perfect game for a Missouri pitcher in nine years en route to a 5-0 win over Drake.
The redshirt sophomore struck out 11 batters in seven innings of work in the first game of a doubleheader between No. 17 Missouri and Drake. The last perfect game by a Tigers pitcher was Feb. 17, 2002, and the Missouri program’s last seven-inning perfect game was in 1991. After the game, Thomas said she didn’t even realize what was at stake in the final inning.
“I’ve been trying to work on this one-pitch-at-a-time idea for me, and that’s how I try to get through each game,” Thomas said. “So I was taking it one pitch at a time, and after the last pitch, Lisa (Simmons) ran up to me and was like, ‘You just threw a perfect game.’ I was kind of in shock for a second.”
Coach Ehren Earleywine said after the game he was proud of his team for not talking about the perfect game, honoring a long-time softball superstition. Even so, catcher Lisa Simmons said she felt the pressure mounting during the game.
“All I was focusing on was ‘make sure you catch the third strike,’” Simmons said. “Don’t drop it, because then it wouldn’t be (a perfect game). So I was trying to focus on those things, but I was trying to keep it out of my head though.”
The game was only Thomas’ third start since missing most of last season with a stress fracture. On a limited riseball count as a precaution, Thomas mixed in drop balls and a slow changeup to keep hitters off balance.
Earleywine said what impressed him the most about the performance was how she and Simmons utilized location during the game.
“We need to be able to do that, and those are things we can’t see from the bench,” Earleywine said. “And they could feel that out there, that outside corner giving two or three inches, and they just lived out there. (Drake) couldn’t reach it or catch up to it, and you have a perfect game.”
The Tigers finally broke things open in the fourth inning, when senior outfielder Rhea Taylor stepped to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. Taylor homered to right centerfield, giving the Tigers their first lead of the game.
“That’s what I call my perfect pitch,” Taylor said. “It was beautiful. I knew immediately when it left her hand that it was going to be a home run.”
Drake drew first blood in the second game, scoring a run in the first inning. But Missouri scored eight unanswered runs, and junior Kristin Nottelmann shut down Drake’s offense with seven strikeouts over seven innings of work.
“It’s easy to just be like ‘Oh, we’re just playing Drake,’” Taylor said. “I think patience (is big) because if you try to go outside yourself instead of playing within yourself, a lot of things start happening. And we didn’t want that. So I think the biggest thing that helped us today was patience.”
As for Thomas, Earleywine said he was proud of her performance, especially after pitching so well in her first two outings.
“And here she is, 0-2,” Earleywine said. “There’s no pitcher in the country I’d rather have than Chelsea Thomas, and she’s 0-2. So you’re just happy to see her get a win and more importantly I want her to rattle off about fifteen or twenty in the next couple months.”
The Tigers head to St. Louis for the Missouri Breast Cancer Awareness Tournament this weekend, and face Southeast Missouri State University on Friday.