Blue White Illustrated

V A R S I T Y V I E W S Making History Junior pitcher Steven Hill hurls Penn State's first no-hitter in 17 years U nder normal circumstances, it would have been an ordinary line drive up the middle. But these weren't normal circumstances. With two out in the bottom of the ninth inning, Steven Hill was just one out away from pitching a no-hitter, a feat that no Penn State pitcher had ac- complished since Nate Bump no-hit Duquesne in 1995. With a 1-1 count, Iowa's Jake Yancinich smacked a line drive right back at Hill. The ball skimmed the top of Hill's outstretched glove before trickling to the ground be- side second base. Charging to his left, shortstop Elliot HILL Searer snatched up the loose ball and fired it to first base for the out, seal- ing Penn State's 2-0 victory over the SOFTBALL Surging Penn State sweeps Minnesota After losing 22 of 29 games to open the season, Penn State re- grouped in April. The Nittany Li- ons shut out Pitt, 4-0, in the sec- ond game of a doubleheader April 3, starting a turnaround that saw them go 10-5 the rest of the month. On April 29, the Lions complet- ed a three-game sweep of visiting Big Ten rival Minnesota, overcom- ing the Gophers' early 3-0 lead for a 4-3 victory. Penn State was down to its final 36 J U N E 1 , 2 0 1 2 host Hawkeyes April 21 and finishing off the first no-hitter of Hill's career. "[Yancinich] just chopped it to short," Hill said. "Elliot made a great read on it, because the kid was fast, he was left-handed, and threw him out. Then I went nuts." As did the whole team. The Lions' dugout cleared, with players converg- ing on the pitcher's mound for the cel- ebration. Hill threw his glove into the air and jumped up and down in ex- hilaration. A native of Colleyville, Texas, who in 2010 served as a walk- on quarterback with the Penn State football team, Hill said he had "nev- er been so happy in my life playing a sport. It doesn't compare to anything. "I still haven't really found the right answer for it," he added after the game. "It's a great feeling, and just looking back on it and all the things that could have gone wrong but didn't, it's just hard to believe." strike in the last two at-bats, as Kailyn Johnson singled with two out, pushing Alyssa Renwick to third. That brought Lauren Yao to the plate. On the ninth pitch of Yao's at-bat, she laced a single through the legs of Minnesota third base- man Kaitlyn Richardson to score Renwick easily. Johnson came home on the play, as the throw from left field went wide of home plate, and the Nittany Lions mobbed Yao on the diamond. The victory was Penn State's fourth in a row, as senior Lisa Akamine pitched another gem. Aside from a two-out, three-run home run to Minnesota's Erika Smyth, Akamine was flawless, go- Hill, whose father attended the game, pointed specifically to an in- stance in the ninth inning in which he almost gave up a base hit. Not only would it have ruined the no-hitter, but it also would have put Iowa in posi- tion to tie the score. After a shaky eighth inning, which resulted in a mound visit from pitch- ing coach Jason Bell, Hill returned to finish off the Hawkeyes in the ninth. But the second batter of the inning belted a deep fly ball to left field. Hill, a junior, said he thought it was probably a double, maybe even worse. But senior outfielder Sean Deegan chased down the ball and made the catch, preserving Hill's no-hitter. "As soon as Deegan made that play on the ball, which I thought was for sure a double, I was like, 'Just exe- cute your pitches,' " Hill said. One batter later, he made history. ing all seven innings with her sec- ond consecutive 10-strikeout day. For the weekend, Akamine went 3-0 in 19.1 innings of work while striking out 26 Golden Gophers, improving to 11-16. With the victories over Minneso- ta – it was the team's first three- game sweep of the Gophers – Penn State extended its winning streak to four games and im- proved to 8-10 in the Big Ten and 17-27 overall. The Lions are 9-2 at Beard Field this season and have two more three-game series remaining in their regular season: a visit to Illi- nois this weekend followed by a homestand against Ohio State May 11-12. N O T E B O O K TRACK & FIELD Nittany Lions shine at Penn Relays Freshman Robby Creese's re- markable last leg lifted Penn State to a first-place finish in the 4x800-meter relay at the Penn Relays Carnival at Franklin Field in Philadelphia April 29. Creese was joined by senior Owen Dawson, freshman Ryan Brennan and junior Casimir Loxsom on the Penn State team, which broke the tape in 7 min- utes, 19.76 seconds. It was Penn State's sixth Penn Relays victory in the event and its first since 1987. Joe Kovacs added to the Nit- tany Lions' success with a cham- pionship in the shot put, tying the school record with a 65-foot, 5-inch toss. Lauren Kenney took home the crown in the javelin competition with a throw of 160 feet, 8 inches, and Melissa Kurz- dorfer won the hammer with a 205-foot, 1-inch throw. MEN'S VOLLEYBALL Penn State claims EIVA championship Eighth-ranked Penn State picked up its 14th consecutive EIVA championship April 28, de- feating George Mason, 3-1, to earn an automatic bid to the 2012 NCAA Men's Volleyball Championships hosted by Southern California May 3 and 5. The Nittany Lions' appearance at NCAAs will be their 17th un- der head coach Mark Pavlik and 27th overall for the program. On April 26, the Lions topped Princeton, 3-0, in the EIVA semi- finals. Senior Joe Sunder was named the tournament's Most Outstand- ing Player, while redshirt senior Edgardo Goas and freshman Aaron Russell were both named to the All-Tournament team. W W W . 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