High School Softball Pitcher Ends Regular Season With Incredible String Of Games
CEDAR GROVE, N.J. (CBSNewYork) -- A high school athlete in New Jersey is attracting a lot of attention Tuesday after the star player has put together an incredible string of performances on the pitchers mound.
17-year-old softball ace Mia Faieta showed CBS2's Lou Young some of the weapons in her pitching arsenal after completing a remarkable three no-hitters to finish her regular season at Cedar Grove High School.
Two games were called early under a mercy rule, and the third went the full seven innings and was recorded as a perfect game.
Mia says she's just trying to stay cool.
"It just kind of happens, sometimes it doesn't," she said. "I don't want to think about it."
Mia is a warrior without a game face -- only a pleasant smile and a blazing fastball. She's a sophomore with a freshman as her regular catcher. Jules Cicala says she's had some adjustments to make.
"I know what the pitches do, where they go, where it doesn't, so I'm not that afraid anymore," the Cedar Grove backstop says. "The velocity is pretty fast, it's frightening at times. It's very fast."
Mia just so happens to be the second generation of softball heroes in her hometown. Her mother was part of the team's championship season in 1984, just 12 years after federal Title IX legislation that opened up a the universe for girls' high school sports.
Since then, things have changed for the better.
"She was a shortstop," Mia says of her mother. "And she taught me how to pitch."
"We were called the 'Lady Panthers,' now we're just called 'Panthers." Cedar Grove are the Panthers, why should we be the Lady Panthers? It should be no different," Mia's mother Francene said. "People come to see her play. They come to see a good game."
Like mother, like daughter. So where does it all lead for Mia? She says she hopes to play Division I softball in college.
Francene says several schools have already started knocking, something that's sure to intensify in the coming year.
The Panthers defeated Verona High School Tuesday evening to win the state sectional championship.