April 12, 2005
Lisa Birocci can bring it. Just ask any of the more than 800 college softball players she’s faced as a member of the Univeristy of Iowa’s nationally ranked softball team.
“A week ago, Lisa Birocci trotted onto the pitcher’s mound, appearing in her second inning of relief in Iowa’s game against Northern Illinois,” Ted McCartan, a writer for The Daily Iowan wrote in an article that appeared in today’s edition of the UI’s award-winning newspaper.
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Iowa entertains William Penn Wednesday at Pearl Field prior to Big Ten Conference games this weekend at Ohio State and Penn State.
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“She meticulously dusted off and cleared the dirt around the rubber, as she always does. After walking the first batter of the inning, she dismantled the next three Huskies, sending them all down on strikes, as she always seems to do.
“The last was Kathy Dearborn, Birocci’s fifth strikeout of the game, the 817th of her career. And that, my friends, would be a Hawkeye record.
“I was kind of happy when it was over,” said Birocci, who’s more humble about being one of the best pitchers in the history of Iowa softball than she is about her own special chicken-wrap recipe at Baldys, her place of work.
“‘The strikeout record was the last thing on my mind when I was playing,’ she said.”
Click HERE to read McCartan’s full story.