MONMOUTH, Ill. \u2014 Once the count reached 1-2, the pitcher on the mound for Monmouth College, Sophia Broderick knew what to throw next.<\/p>\n
The freshman righthander put a slider grip on the baseball and tossed a pitch that looked like it might be a strike until it broke into the dirt, inducing the desired chase and miss.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s how she posted the first strikeout of her collegiate career.<\/p>\n
Yes, she. It was a little bit more diamond history for Sophia Broderick, who\u2019s made a habit of pitching success since starting out in baseball a decade ago at the age of 8. The strikeout came on March 11 \u2014 smack in the middle of Women\u2019s History Month \u2014 against Penn State-Behrend during the Fighting Scots\u2019 annual Florida trip and was part of an impressive stretch for her in the game. The next two batters Broderick faced flied out and grounded out and, after a leadoff walk the next inning, she notched her second K on an 0-2 pitch.<\/p>\n
Less than two years after Mylee Hansen suited up for the Scots varsity and booted an extra point to blaze a trail at Monmouth in football, Broderick became the first female athlete to play in a Scots baseball game. Like Hansen, she\u2019d been told the opportunity might be coming, but it didn\u2019t unfold exactly as it was envisioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoach (Neil) Mecagni told me that I might pitch in our Wednesday or Thursday games,\u201d said Broderick, who stands 5-foot-9. \u201cHe told me the plan was to put me in a clean inning.\u201d<\/p>\n
But just like Joe Maddon\u2019s plan of a clean inning for Jon Lester in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series didn\u2019t happen, Broderick\u2019s entrance into the game was the opposite extreme of clean \u2014 bases loaded, no one out.<\/p>\n
In addition to the situational pressure, Broderick was hearing a little chirping from the Penn State parent section. But, to their credit, their chatter turned to cheers when Broderick flashed her strikeout form.<\/p>\n
Warming up to her<\/p>\n
It was all new to the Lions fans \u2014 heck, it was new to Scots fans, too \u2014 but it\u2019s old hat for Broderick, who\u2019s spent several of the past 10 years as the ace of her team\u2019s staff. That success led her to believe that college baseball was possible, and Monmouth was one of two schools that showed serious interest.<\/p>\n
Still, Broderick was anxious. In her hometown of suburban Geneva, Illinois, many of her teammates had been with her throughout her diamond journey. By the time she was moving up the ranks of Geneva High School\u2019s freshman and JV teams and earning a varsity spot, they were fully aware she had command of the strike zone. But joining a new team full of new guys meant she was losing control of her comfort zone.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing in, I was kinda worried, but the whole team has been nothing but supportive and very respectful of me,\u201d said Broderick.<\/p>\n
And for good reason, says Mecagni, an assistant coach who pitched for the Scots in 2010-11.<\/p>\n
\u201cSophia has been fantastic addition to our program,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s been a great competitor from day one and has blended with our team and our team culture seamlessly. She came in with a really good knowledge base, has been extremely coachable, and has made some big strides already in a short amount of time. I\u2019m excited to see what the future holds for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a baseball future not only limited to the Monmouth mound and playing against men, but competing for the U.S. national women\u2019s team, too, which she\u2019s been part of the past few summers, including 2024, when she was the only new addition to its roster. She\u2019s played in North Carolina and Minnesota, among other places, and she\u2019ll spend this summer toggling back and forth with the squad between Chicago and Rockford.<\/p>\n
Hoping to say \u2018I-80\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d watched a lot of video, but I hadn\u2019t seen her throw live in-game until she got on campus this fall,\u201d said Mecagni. \u201cFrom the video, I knew she had an athletic motion and a quick arm. Seeing her throw live reinforced those things. I was very impressed by her in-game stuff and how she competes with it. She throws a really good four- to five-pitch mix with her two-seam and slider being outlier pitches that allow her to go out and consistently get outs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe coaches told me they definitely liked what they saw in Florida,\u201d said Broderick. \u201cI threw a lot of strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n
What she didn\u2019t quite do \u2014 but came incredibly close \u2014 was hit 80 miles per hour on the radar gun, which would\u2019ve been her new fastest pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was consistently throwing 79 in Florida,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I was getting really close to 80, like 79.6. But I didn\u2019t know that until after I came out of the game. I\u2019ve never hit 80. If I\u2019d known I was so close, I probably would\u2019ve just let one eat. I might\u2019ve hit it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broderick said she\u2019s \u201cnaturally always had a pretty good arm\u201d and \u201cpretty decent velo,\u201d experiencing several seasons of being her team\u2019s ace and its hardest thrower \u201cbefore the guys hit puberty.\u201d<\/p>\n
But her five-pitch arsenal \u2014 an arsenal she\u2019s developed, in part, through years of pitching to her dad and \u201cbiggest supporter,\u201d Sean Broderick \u2014 is still a force to be reckoned with at Monmouth, where she figures to slot in as a reliever. With the national team, she enjoys getting the chance to hit and is a force there, as well.<\/p>\n
Women\u2019s baseball is building momentum, rising back to the level it enjoyed in the mid-20th century, which was captured in the movie A League of Their Own, starring Geena Davis, Madonna and Tom Hanks. Former Little League World Series star Mo\u2019ne Davis is part of that momentum, and Broderick has seen some of her national teammates drafted by the new Women\u2019s Professional Baseball League, which is set to debut in August as the first professional women\u2019s baseball league in the U.S. since 1954. One of her teammates, Olivia Pichardo, made history a few years back as the first woman to play Division I baseball, suiting up at Brown University, where she\u2019s now a senior.<\/p>\n
Broderick will let her collegiate career play out before she thinks too much of the WPBL but, long-term, professional sports is very much on her mind. Whenever her playing days end, she hopes to turn her extensive background in sports \u2014 and her Monmouth communication studies degree \u2014 into a career in the business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONMOUTH, Ill. \u2014 Once the count reached 1-2, the pitcher on the mound for Monmouth College, Sophia Broderick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2289],"tags":[28759,23400,2315,2309,2336,5,3313,2340,648,2330,2333,2334,19,2308,1694,2341,2307,2320,185,2350,2338,2311,2312],"class_list":{"0":"post-661395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-college-baseball","8":"tag-2016-world-series","9":"tag-a-league-of-their-own","10":"tag-athletic-sports","11":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","12":"tag-ball-games","13":"tag-baseball","14":"tag-baseball-field","15":"tag-baseball-positions","16":"tag-college-baseball","17":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","18":"tag-grass-field-surfaces","19":"tag-lawn-games","20":"tag-major-league-baseball","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","22":"tag-ncaa","23":"tag-ncaa-baseball","24":"tag-outdoor-sports","25":"tag-pitcher","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-strikeout","28":"tag-team-activities","29":"tag-team-sports","30":"tag-turf-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116342520764318053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}