MIAC Athletes of the Week

WINONA, Minn. — R.J. Brown (Broadview, Ill.) accomplished something most collegiate pitchers can only dream about when he tossed the Saint Mary's University of Minnesota baseball team's first no-hitter in more than two decades on March 17.
 
If pitching a collegiate no-hitter is a dream come true, what is it when you do it twice—in one season?
 
Because that's exactly what Brown did last Friday, as the junior right-hander racked up no-hitter No. 2, limiting Carleton to just three base runners—one on a walk in the third inning and two more via back-to-back walks in the fourth—in leading the Cardinals to a 4-0 victory in the opening game of their Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference sweep of Carleton.
 
That second no-hitter also earned Brown his second MIAC Pitcher of the Week honor, the conference office announced Monday.
 
Brown—who allowed just three base runners, two via Cardinal errors and the other on a second-inning hit batter, en route to his first no-hitter against Aurora on March 17—was just as stingy against Carleton on Friday. Brown set down the first seven Knight batters he faced—before surrendering a one-out walk to Zane Johann—and retired the last 10 Carleton hitters, after giving up back-to-back two-out walks to Ben Frerichs and Brendon Fischel in the fifth. He induced the Knights into 10 groundball outs and eight fly ball outs.
 
Brown—the first Cardinal pitcher on record to throw two no-hitters in a single season—is the first NCAA Division III hurler with two no-hitters in a season since Ferrum's Jake Perkins did it twice during the 2014 season. Brown is also the first MIAC pitcher with two no-hitters in a season since 1977, when Saint John's Rick Laba achieved the feat—no-hitting Gustavus (2-0) and Augsburg (2-0).
 
After logging just 5 2/3 innings in his first two seasons as a Cardinal combined, Brown has thrown a team-leading 44 1/3 innings this season, owning a 3-3 record, a 3.05 ERA and a team-best 36 strikeouts.
 
Brown and the Cardinals (7-9 MIAC, 17-18 overall) are back in action on Wednesday, when Saint Mary's entertains Hamline in a 2:30 p.m. conference doubleheader at Max Molock Field.