On This Date: Robinson Tosses First Baseball No-No in 20 Years; Gillen No-Hits St. Bonaventure for Softball; Baseball Knocks Off Nationally Ranked Charlotte

With the 2020 spring sports season canceled by the COVID-19 outbreak, we at Fordham have decided to dig back through our archives and provide our fans with content on some of the outstanding teams and student-athletes who have graced Rose Hill over the years
 
April 22, 1936 – For the first time in 20 seasons, the Fordham baseball team recorded a no-hitter as George Robinson went the distance in a 10-0 win over Upsala College.
 
Robinson did allow five baserunners in the game, as Sam Slifkin was hit by a pitch twice and three reached on Fordham errors, earning his third win of the season.
 
With the game scoreless through five innings, Fordham scored three runs in the sixth inning and six in the seventh for a 9-0 lead.
 
Offensively, Joe Woitkowski was 2-for-4 with a triple, with Tony DePhillips, Fred Marcella, and Dick Fritzche each having a double.
 
Robinson ended the year 4-1 in eight appearances with 28 strikeouts over 41.2 innings pitched.
 
 

April 22, 2014 - On this day in Fordham softball history, then-junior Rachel Gillen, in her first season with the Rams, became the fourth pitcher in program history to throw a no-hitter, shutting down St. Bonaventure over five innings in game two of a doubleheader at Bahoshy Field six years ago.
 
Gillen allowed just three walks and struck out seven Bonnies. She walked the first batter of the game, Kelli Rohan, who eventually reached third only to be left stranded by a Gillen inning-ending strikeout. The third and final walk came with one out in the fifth, but Gillen bounced back with two straight swinging strikeouts to see out her historic victory. Gillen also went 2-for-3 in the contest with a double and a run scored.
 
The Wilmington, Del. native finished her first season with a 5.09 ERA over 25 appearances and 11 starts, posting the second most wins (8), strikeouts (65), and appearances. A three-time Atlantic 10 champion, she enjoyed a tremendous senior campaign in which she went 24-9 with a 2.33 ERA and 250 strikeouts, while batting .374 at the dish, one of the best two-way seasons in Fordham history. As a result, she garnered First Team NFCA All-Region honors, First Team All-Conference as a pitcher and Second Team as a designated player, and ECAC Second Team, plus Most Outstanding Player at that year's A-10 Championship.
 
She saw out her excellent career with a 3.67 ERA and 16-12 record as a grad student, batting .302. She is a staple in nearly every pitching category in the record book – seventh with 101 appearances, 69 starts, and 467.2 innings pitched, fifth with 39 complete games and 48 wins, and third with 470 strikeouts and 13 shutouts. Her performances in the circle during the 2015 season remain one of the finest in program history.
 
 

April 22, 2011 – A showdown between two of the top pitching staff in the Atlantic 10 did not disappoint, as Charlotte, ranked #28 in the nation by the NCBWA, and Fordham kicked off their conference series with a 2-1 win by the Rams at Hayes Stadium in North Carolina.  This marked the second straight year that Fordham had pulled an upset over a nationally-ranked opponent.
 
The Rams hit the scoreboard right away in the first inning, as Nick Martinez reached second on a single and an error, while Ryan David connected on an RBI-single to center for a 1-0 lead.
 
Fordham added to the lead in the third, when Stephen McSherry connected on a solo home run to right for his second of the year.

 
Fordham starter Brian Pendergast kept the Charlotte bats without a hit through five innings, but finally yielded a hit to Justin Wilson to lead off the sixth. After a pair of outs left Wilson on second, Shaylor singled up the middle to score Wilson to cut the Rams' lead to 2-1.
 
The 49ers though were shut down the rest of the way as Pendergast, Rich Anastasi, and Tim Swatek, allowed a total of two hits the entire game. Pendergast (2-5) earned his first win of the season since March 4th against Wake Forest. He gave up just one run on two hits and struck out four batters in 7.1 innings of work. Anastasi pitched one scoreless inning with Swatek recording the final two outs of the ball game for his team-leading fourth save of the season.
 
At the plate, Martinez was 2-for-4, while David and McSherry each had a hit and an RBI.