College Spotlight: Longwood Pitcher Sydney Backstrom was Chasing, and Achieving, Perfection Last Saturday… But No One Wanted to Talk About It!

The Longwood Lancers (Farmville, Virginia) haven’t shied away from strong competition this year, having played Top 25 and Power 5 teams such as Georgia (beat the Bulldogs 3-2 on Feb. 20), South Carolina, Duke, Virginia Tech and James Madison in addition to their Big South Conference foes.

Leading the way has been pitcher Sydney Backstrom, who has been the team’s ace since 2018 when she was named to the Big South All-Freshman Team. As a sophomore in 2019, she tossed a no-hitter over league rival Hampton and came just one baserunner away from a perfect game.

Last Saturday, on the road in Clinton, South Carolina,  Sydney was again flirting with a perfect game and, as Chris Cook, the university’s Assistant VP of Athletics Communications, tells the story, the pitcher “found herself in a shared conspiracy of silence” as no one wanted to jinx the developing masterpiece!

Here is Chris’s awesome telling of the developing perfect game and how impressive Sydney’s performance really was…

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It was the worst-kept secret in the Longwood dugout, but not a single Lancer dared jinx it.

Five innings into this past Saturday’s Big South series opener against Presbyterian, All-Big South pitcher Sydney Backstrom was perfect. Twelve batters had stepped to the plate, and all 12 had fallen victim to the Longwood ace’s arsenal of fastballs, dropballs, riseballs and screwballs.

But from the conversation in the Lancer dugout, not a single eavesdropper would have known that Backstrom was only a few outs away from making history.

“In the fourth inning after Destiny [Martinez] made that diving play, I thought then it could honestly be a perfect game,” said Longwood catcher Alexis Wayland. “I hadn’t thought about it to that point. Even after that, I never said anything in the dugout to anybody. You don’t want to get in her head.”

“Her” head referring to Backstrom, who despite the magnitude of her performance Saturday found herself in a shared conspiracy of silence as her teammates declined to break one of softball’s strongest superstitions – that a player never mentions the words “no-hitter” or “perfect game” until the final out is recorded.

But if there’s such a thing as loud silence, it crescendoed to an ear-splitting level by the seventh inning Saturday and then went full blast after Backstrom caught the game-ending popup to close out the first perfect game of Longwood’s Division I era.

“It’s funny because in 2019 I had a similar game going where I was one walk away from a perfect game, but nobody knew because nobody talked about it,” Backstrom said. “I had a no-hitter, and I walked back to the dugout and they were just like, ‘Good game.’ I thought, is nobody going to talk about it? So I thought the same thing was going on Saturday, but then I caught the last ball and the entire dugout was screaming.”

PERFECTION! @LongwoodSB's Sydney Backstrom tosses a PERFECT GAME today in Clinton!#BigSouthSB🥎 pic.twitter.com/pE1VhcHXPZ

— Big South Conference (@BigSouthSports) April 18, 2021

Moving down all 21 batters she faced, Backstrom added the latest bullet point to an eye-popping season and four-year career, throwing her second no-hitter and first perfect game in a 7-0 win against Presbyterian. She struck out nine and did not allow a single ball to leave the infield, allowing the Lancers’ flawless defense to take care of the other 12 outs.

It was yet another feather in the visor of Backstrom, who leads the Big South in wins (16) and opponent batting average (.194), ranks second in strikeouts (143) and fourth in ERA (2.74), and among the top five in the NCAA in innings pitched (158.2), starts (24) and complete games (19).

Monday she was named Big South Pitcher of the Week for a Longwood-record fourth time and a “Top Performer” by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA).

Not only did she toss a PERFECT GAME…

She recorded 3⃣1⃣ strikeouts in 2⃣8⃣ innings!@LongwoodSB's Sydney Backstrom is the #BigSouthSB🥎 Pitcher of the Week! pic.twitter.com/gpEpDIqPMT

— Big South Conference (@BigSouthSports) April 19, 2021

However, despite how locked-in she appeared throughout Saturday’s masterpiece and how measured and humble she is now when recapping the performance, she admits that even she felt the pressure of perfection.

“After Destiny made that diving play in the fourth, I thought I might have a shot and the nerves kept piling on from there,” recalled Backstrom. “In the bottom of the seventh, I was physically shaking. I felt like time was going by so fast. I remember re-watching the game and thinking it didn’t look like much, but in my mind every batter I was like, ‘I HAVE to get this out right here.’”

The game was in fact moving quickly, but most of that was due to the fact that Backstrom was in cruise control. She faced a three-ball count just once the entire game and needed only 79 pitches to make it through to the end – an unfathomable average of 11.3 pitches per inning or just 3.7 per batter.

That efficiency and command is nothing new for the 6-foot-1 Backstrom, who has thrown complete games in 19 of her 24 starts this season and has amassed more than twice as many strikeouts as walks in her career.

She can make a softball do many impressive things during its 43-foot journey from the pitching rubber to the plate, but – says Wayland – what makes her so dominant on the mound is not just her impressive array of pitches and her pinpoint command of that arsenal.

“She has good pitches, but she has a lot of confidence too. She doesn’t get rattled because she has trust in our defense,” Wayland said. “She knows if she walks a girl, we can get a double play. She has confidence in herself as well. If something’s not working in the bullpen, she might get a little concerned but she knows when it’s game time, she can make it work. And even then if it’s not working, she can go to another pitch.”

Ironically, one of Backstrom’s go-to pitches wasn’t working early Saturday, as she disclosed to first-year head coach Dr. Megan Brown after the first inning.

“Everybody thinks when you’re throwing a perfect game, you must be in this mystical zone where everything’s perfect,” said Brown, a three-time All-American pitcher herself whose coaching career pre-Longwood included stops as a pitching coach in the ACC, Pac-12 and SEC.

“But honestly when she came off the mound after the first inning, she said her riseball wasn’t working. I said no no, we need to get that fixed. We talked about the adjustments, and she fixed it right away, but every inning there was an adjustment we were making.”

Brown said Backstrom’s ability to adjust stems from not only her talents as a pitcher but the amount of time she puts into her preparation and practice – a reputation fitting for a pitcher who has earned the mantel of “workhorse” and ranks among the nation’s top five in innings, starts and complete games.

“She works extremely hard. Unbelievably hard,” Brown said. “She’s bought into the notion that she has to get herself ready to go. She works hard in the weight room. [Director of sports performance Tyler Wrenn] has done an amazing job getting her and our entire team into shape, and strong, and healthy. [Athletic trainer Lindsay Bentley] does an amazing job keeping her healthy and helping her recover.

“It’s really all hands-on deck, but she’s the biggest piece. She’s just said I’m going to do what I’ve got to do.”

Entering the season, both Backstrom and Brown knew the team would likely need her to shoulder a large portion of the team’s innings. She was the most experienced of Longwood’s pitching staff, having thrown nearly 400 innings in a career that had already seen her earn All-Big South honors and Big South Preseason Pitcher of the Year recognition before the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

Now more than two months into 2021, Backstrom has more than successfully carried that load, throwing 60 percent of the team’s innings and earning the win in 16 of Longwood’s 21 victories and saves in two others. She has made two starts in every single one of Longwood’s five Big South series so far, routinely throwing complete games on back-to-back days.

It’s a burden that Backstrom is built to handle.

“In the fall, we talk about putting hay in the barn that you’re going to need for spring,” Brown said. “A lot of times pitchers throw their bullpen before practice and then they shag batting practice for two hours. Our pitchers come to practice and pitch for almost three hours. They do different drills, they condition, they do core exercises. We train them in such a way that we build endurance. If you don’t train that way, you can’t do it. We train all our pitchers for longevity.”

With Longwood currently in third place in the Big South with a 10-5 league record, the Lancers will continue to ride their ace to the season’s end. And with 10 games left in the regular season, is there any more perfection in Backstrom’s future?

The Lancers sure hope so – even if they won’t talk about it.

— Chris Cook