Throwback Thursday: Shealyn O’Leary… the “Perfect” Texas Pitcher Back in Her Cali Days

On Wednesday, Shealyn O’Leary continued her fantastic freshman season for the Texas Longhorns as she threw a perfect game in a 2-0 win over Baylor.

O’Leary retired all 21 batters she faced in the Big 12 matchup in Waco and became just the second freshman ever to pitch a perfect game for Texas—the other was someone who went on to have a pretty good career herself: Cat Osterman.

In a year of great freshmen pitchers—O’Leary, Alabama’s Montana Fouts, UCLA’s Megan Faraimo and Tennessee’s Ashley Rogers, among others—the Longhorn standout is well on her way to having an All-American season as she’s now 11-0 and two of those wins have been no-hitters.

In 69 2/3^rd innings so far in 2019, O’Leary has a 0.40 ERA with 48 strikeouts and has limited opponents to a .150 batting average.

We’ve been following the tall hurler for several years now throughout her days at Valencia (California) and with the So Cal Choppers… that was when she went by “Shea” O’Leary (and what I’ll refer to her when referencing those days).

Here are three examples…

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We profiled the top teams heading into PGF 18U Premier Nationals and here’s what we wrote of Shealyn’s Chopper’s team:

So Cal Choppers-Fausett (July 20, 2018)

Dean Fausett’s So Cal Choppers are another top contender from So Cal. Texas-bound right-hander Shea O’Leary has been out all summer with an ankle injury, but she will be back for PGF to help the Choppers make a run.

“I am extremely excited for Nationals and all of the competition that awaits,” O’Leary said. “Health-wise I am doing really good, the ankle hasn’t given me any problems. In order for the Choppers to make a run for the title we need to come together as a complete team. We need to have defense, offense and pitching on at the same time.”

Shea will be pitching to her Valencia (California) High battery-mate Ally Shipman (2018, Tennessee) who was announced this morning as one of the invites to the Louisville Slugger Hit Club as well as a 1^st Team Extra Inning Softball All-American and PGF All-American.

If those two get in synch, the offense can score runs too with standouts such as outfielder Isabella Dayton (2019, Arizona), outfielder Makenna Harper (2018, ASU) and catcher/infielder Makena Smith (2018, Cal) ones to watch.

The Choppers ended up 3-2 and tied for 17^th.

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Last spring we had Shealyn in the Top 15 of our 2018 Extra Elite 100 rankings and here’s what we wrote at the time:

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