Pope John Paul II senior pitcher Laura Ricciardone nearly threw a perfect game during a no-hitter Thursday in a 9-0-district road victory over Pine.

Ricciardone was tough all game, striking out 16 batters. Pine had just one player reach base and that was on a dropped third strike.

Ricciardone said getting the no-hitter was great, but the victory was most important.

Laura Ricciardone

“It’s pretty exciting, but it was even better to get a district win as a team, so we can keep on going with that,” Ricciardone said.

She said the feat didn’t cross her mind during the contest.

“I just go out and focus on striking out as many people as I can, getting out as many people for my team and I know they’ll take care of the rest,” Ricciardone said.

PJP coach Mark Jeanmard said Ricciardone was tough.

“Laura was very dominating,” Jeanmard said. “I don’t know that many counts went full. Typically within three-to-four pitches, she was striking people out. She was just on. Her curveball was doing a great job. She was throwing very hard, in fact, several of the batters were as far back in the batter’s box as possible, trying to give themselves more time.”

The Lady Jaguars led 2-0 after five innings, but widened the margin late.

PJP evened its record at 1-1 in district and was 8-5-1 overall at press time. This weekend, Pope John Paul II played in the SSA Tournament.

The Lady Jags entered Thursday’s contest following a 2-0 loss against Springfield. Ricciardone said they wanted to rebound from Tuesday’s setback.

“We wanted to come out in our second-district game from our loss that we had the other day, as a team and play really hard. We came out, performed well and we got our first district win.”

The bats also came through for the Lady Jaguars. Ricciardone helped her own cause, going 2-4 and driving in a pair of runs. Michelle Diaz went 3-4, while Jessica Gros had a hit with three RBIs and she was hit by a pitch.