For the second time this season, Fort Hays State senior Maddie Holub was named the NFCA/Louisville Slugger Division II National Pitcher of the Week on Wednesday, April 10. This is the third time in Holub’s career that she’s earned this honor after earning the honor once in 2012. She was named the National Pitcher of the Week on March 13 earlier this year.

Holub had a tremendous week in the pitching circle, going 4-0 with an 0.25 ERA and threw the first perfect game in Fort Hays State softball history against Northwest Missouri State on Saturday in a 1-0 win. In her perfect game, 17 of the 21 outs were strikeouts, three outs were pop ups on the infield (two in foul territory), and the other was a soft ground out to first base. The perfect game was impressive in that it was just a day after her 12-inning complete game effort in a 2-1 win vs. Missouri Western on Friday in a battle of nationally ranked teams as she threw 195 pitches in that game, also striking out 17 batters. The nationally ranked match-up between #18 Fort Hays State and #24 Missouri Western featured the two All-MIAA First Team selections from 2012 at pitcher, Holub and Jackie Bishop, as both held the opposition scoreless through nine innings before the international tiebreaker came into effect starting in the 10th inning. The 17 strikeouts in each game topped her single-game record of 16 strikeouts at FHSU, which she reached four times previously in her career.

Holub also had a complete-game 14 strikeout effort in a 2-1 win over Panhandle State on Tuesday, the only game in which she surrendered an earned run for the week. She went past the 800 career strikeout milestone in that game.

Holub closed out the week by picking up a win in game two against Northwest Missouri State right after her perfect game, throwing the last two innings before she won the game with her bat to break a 3-3 tie in the eighth with a bases-loaded two-out RBI single. She held the Bearcats hitless in those two innings of relief, which gave her nine hitless innings against NWMSU on Saturday. Holub also won the game with her bat in her perfect game effort, plating the only run of the game with a RBI double in the fourth.

For the week, Holub had 51 strikeouts in 28.0 innings, averaging 12.8 strikeouts per seven innings or 1.8 per inning, and a WHIP of 0.39 and opponent batting average of .102, allowing just nine hits and two walks for the week. Holub is now 18-1 overall on the season.

-FHSU Sports Information-