Olivia Pichardo made college baseball history again over the weekend at Brown University, becoming the first woman to appear in a Division I game as both a hitter and a pitcher on separate occasions. In her first college pitching outing, she did not allow a hit or a walk.
Pichardo, who grew up playing baseball in Queens, New York, finished the lone pitching appearance of her four-year college baseball career with a 0.00 ERA. The 5-foot-7, 165-pound player toed the rubber for the first time and worked without giving up a baserunner, a rare clean line for any college pitcher and a milestone no woman had reached in Division I baseball before her.
Her path to that moment started long before Brown. She played baseball in a region packed with talent, including for one of the most prominent travel organizations in New York and one of the best programs in the northeast, and she was already playing varsity high school baseball as a seventh- and eighth-grader. She never played softball. That background helped lead to an opportunity with the USA Baseball Women’s National Team, and later to Brown, where she enrolled as a regular student concentrating in business economics.
The Bears hold student tryouts every fall, and Pichardo tried out as a freshman in 2022. Former head coach Grant Achilles offered her a walk-on spot after what he called the most complete tryout he had seen from a player since becoming a head coach. She went on to become the first female to play college baseball on the Division I level, and in 2023 she became the first woman to appear in a Division I game with a singular at-bat. That first plate appearance ended with a groundout to first base.
She added another first in the summer of 2023, becoming the first woman to homer in the Hamptons League while playing for the Sag Harbor Whalers. The latest milestone came now from the mound, and it fits the same pattern: every time Brown has asked more of her, Pichardo has answered with something no woman in Division I baseball had done before.
The larger backdrop makes that history clearer. Before Pichardo, nearly 20 women had played college baseball at schools around the country, but none had done so in Division I. Eight women were slated to suit up in 2023, but none reached that level. Pichardo already changed that once as a hitter. Over the weekend, she changed it again as a pitcher.
For Brown, the first pitch was also the final proof of how far one walk-on can go. For Pichardo, the next question is no longer whether she belongs in Division I baseball. It is how many firsts are left.
