The 2018 DII softball season concluded with the career home run record being broken by not one, but two players. Brooke Goad of Southern Arkansas shattered the previous record of 79 with a career total of 90, while Ashley Hardin of West Texas A&M surpassed the mark by four.
As they say, records are made to be broken.
Except for those that aren't. What about those records that seem like they can stand the test of time? Let’s take a look at nine DII softball records that may never be broken.
2019 DII SOFTBALL TOURNAMENT: Bracket, schedule, and format
3, Part I — Home runs in an inning. Saint Leo’s Tatiana Casis accomplished the feat on March 4, 2009, in a 28-0 victory over Salem International. The most home runs in a single game in DII softball history is four, and Casis nearly matched it in a single inning.
It gets even crazier. Two of the home runs were a grand slam, also tied for the single-inning record. The other home run was a two-run bomb, giving Casis a 10-RBI inning — you guessed it, also the DII record. She didn’t have another at bat after a 19-run first inning, leaving us wondering what other records could have gone down.
3, Part II — Games in a row with a grand slam. In 2013 Haley Richter of St. Mary’s (Tx) left the park three games in a row with the bases loaded. The career-mark in DII softball is seven and Richter got nearly halfway there in three days. The simple odds of getting three bases loaded at bats in three-straight games is rare in its own right. To deliver in each one is remarkable.
6 — Career perfect games in a season. Hannah Perryman of Missouri-St. Louis ended her career as one of DII softball’s all-time greatest pitchers. Her nine career perfect games are second to none, as are her 1,725 career strikeouts. She’s in the top 10 in nearly every career pitching category, and her 2015 record-setting season was one for the ages.
17 — Hits in a row. We’re not talking about a 17-game hitting streak here. We’re talking about coming to the plate 17 times and getting a hit in every single one of them. Washburn’s Marcy Scott pulled it off between April 13-19, 1996.
18 — Total bases in a game. Why does 18 seem like such an unattainable number? Look at it this way. If you hit four home runs in a game, which we said was the most ever by a DII softball player, you only have 16 total bases. Well, Yolanda Carter of Bowie State did that and more on March 18, 1995, when she became one of seven players with four home runs in a single game with a couple of extra bases added.
21 — Strikeouts in a 7-inning game. This is literally unbreakable in every sense of the word. Every out of Indianapolis’ Morgan Foley’s no-hitter was a strikeout, so this record may one day be matched, but not broken. Foley, of course, was one of DII softball’s all-time strikeout greats, recording 30 in a 13-inning game in 2014, also a DII record.
86.7 — Consecutive shutout innings. Another DII softball legend, Lock Haven’s Kristin Erb didn’t allow a single run from March 21 to April 12, 2008. That was just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Erb’s accomplishments. She had 33 shutouts in 2009, leading Lock Haven to its second national championship in four years, and finished with 100 in her career, both numbers still the best in DII softball history. Erb finished with a 0.39 ERA in a career that saw her capture two national player of the year honors and three national pitcher of the year awards.
95 — Times hit by a pitch in a career. This is just a record we hope is never broken purely so no one has to get beaned 96 times in their career. Sarah Wittenburg of Texas Woman’s accomplished the feat, averaging 23.74 hit by pitches over her four seasons. While the cost was plenty an ice pack, Wittenburg's name should live forever in DII softball lore.
344 — Career RBI. Wisconsin-Parkside's Jackie Aiken was an absolute RBI machine from 1994 to 1997. Her 110 in 1995 is still the single-season record. That's also an average of 86 RBI per season, a mark that only 10 other people have surpassed in the history of DII softball.
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