No-Hitter! Erica Nori Throws Princeton's First No-No in 11 Years

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Lisa Van Ackeren, the head coach of the Princeton softball team, threw four no-hitters during her career at Lehigh, so she knew a bit about what senior Erica Nori was working with Saturday afternoon in California.

Nori walked one in the second and one each in the sixth and seventh, but aside from that, every North Dakota batter she faced went down as the Tigers beat the Fighting Hawks 6-0 with Nori throwing the program's first no-hitter since 2006 and the first seven-inning no-hitter since 2005.

"All the pitchers knew and all the coaches knew, and we were kind of looking at each other, but no one said anything, which is the right thing to do in those situations," Van Ackeren said. "We just kept quiet and then in the seventh, it was spreading through the dugout, person by person. They were all kind of whispering as we were a couple outs away, and they felt like they had to share it at that point so we could go crazy when she sealed the deal."

A ground ball to Kaylee Grant at first base ended it on a day that saw Nori split her outs almost as evenly as possible. Seven strikeouts, seven groundouts and six flyouts did the trick, with a double play erasing the walk to start the sixth. No North Dakota runner got past second base, where the Fighting Hawks reached once on the second-inning walk and a wild pitch.

Though Nori rolled through 12 North Dakota batters in a row between the walks in the second and sixth, the senior said the feat wasn't on her mind.

"I actually wasn't really aware that it couldn't be a no-hitter until we got the third out and everyone just ran out of the dugout and was hugging me," Nori said. "Once you have it in your head, it kind of becomes your focus, and I think that can distract from what's at hand."

Grant homered in the first to pick up a Megan Donahey single and give Princeton a 2-0 lead, and Keeley Walsh made it 4-0 in the third when she brought home another Donahey single and a throwing error that allowed Allison Harvey to reach. A Kelsey Smith double in the fifth scored a hit-by-pitch that put Grant on, and Harvey made it 6-0 in the sixth when she singled home an Alex Viscusi walk.

The no-hitter came in Nori's second outing of the season and two weeks after she had a rough 3 1/3 innings in a run-rule loss to Houston.

"It's definitely a testament to Erica's hard work this year," Van Ackeren said. "It's a result of work over time and the right focus and taking it one pitch at a time, and she did that really, really well today."

Donahey supported Nori's effort with a 3 for 4 game, and Smith had her first multi-hit game of the season with a 2-for-3 effort.

"We were working with the pitches that were working, really diverse pitch-calling and also the defense really came through and did their job," Nori said. "Offensively, we had some really good at-bats, relaly just pushed in the runs. All around, a team effort."

The North Dakota game was the first of two on the day for the Tigers, who dropped a 2-1 decision to host UC Davis later in the day.

Against the Aggies, Princeton went up 1-0 in the second on a home run by Marissa Reynolds, and though Princeton out-hit UC Davis 6-5, that was all Princeton got. The Aggies' Maggie Rojas singled home a leadoff walk to Ashley Lotoszynski to tie it in the bottom of the second, and Alexis Carney put UC Davis up 2-1 with a home run in the third. That's where it stayed as UC Davis' Andrea Reynolds out-dueled Princeton's Ashley LaGuardia to hold on for the win.

Princeton will have two back-to-back Sunday, first against Saint Mary's at 2 p.m. ET before a rematch with host UC Davis at 4:15 ET.

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