Maddie Penta during the game between Auburn and Ole Miss at Jane B. Moore Field April 2, 2023.
BY NOAH GRIFFITH
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN —
The No. 23-ranked Auburn softball team (28-10) has won its past two SEC series over Missouri and Ole Miss. Maddie Penta threw four complete game shutouts across those six games. In those 28 innings, she struck out 42 batters, allowed just seven hits and two earned runs while improving to 16-4 with four more wins.
Penta ran into some tough luck in three losses to No. 1 Oklahoma and a tough Northwestern team in Oklahoma City early in March, but this season has a chance to be her best yet. And she set the program sophomore strikeout record last season with 269.
Now fourth in program history with 557 career Ks, Penta is already at 183 Ks through 118.1 innings pitched with over 15 games remaining in the regular season. She sits at third in the NCAA in strikeouts, but where she has really improved her game from last season is command.
The junior already had a strikeout-to-walk ratio better than 5.0 last season, but now it’s well above 9.0. Her 9.72 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranks sixth nationally, and only one pitcher above her has thrown more than 100 innings (Emma Lemley – Virginia Tech).
Getting out to a dominant start, Penta threw 62 innings and struck out 107 batters before giving up an earned run this season, and while the home run ball has been her one and only downfall in SEC play (eight homers allowed), she still ranks in the top 10 in the nation in ERA. Her 0.89 ERA is good for ninth in the NCAA, and again, only one pitcher ranked above her has tossed on the upside of 100 innings.
She led the SEC in ERA last season with a 1.76, but she currently sits fourth among SEC pitchers, trailing a pair of Tennessee hurlers and Ole Miss’s Catelyn Riley, who has only thrown 22.1 innings this season.
She has given up less than half the number of hits she allowed last season (59) and is already over halfway to her number of complete games from last season with eight now. Four of those have been shutouts, already doubling the number of shutouts she recorded in 2022.
She has also proven herself more than capable of escaping danger. She hasn’t gotten into much trouble this year, but on Friday versus Ole Miss, she escaped a bases-loaded, no-out jam by only allowing one unearned run to cross on a passed ball before inducing a pair of popups and a K.
With her escape-artist potential and her playoff experience from last season, she looks primed to lead the Tigers to a deep playoff run. She is never afraid of the big moment, as she showed in the Clemson Regional last season and as she has continued to prove this season. She not only has 16 wins, but No. 9 has two saves under her belt.
Sitting at fourth in the conference, series with Florida, LSU, Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi State remain before going to the SEC Tournament in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on May 13. Penta will need to continue to be a workhorse for the Tigers if they hope to be a top-four seed and get a first-round bye.