No-hitter another highlight in Johnson’s CU career

The memory is gone. It is lost among 10 years of pitches thrown, softball games played, and papers and exams completed for school. A proud father remembers, though, and he texted his daughter this weekend to remind her.

The last time Maggie Johnson—a senior pitcher on Columbia’s softball team—threw a no-hitter, she was 11 years old. The senior doesn’t recall the game. “With softball you have to have a short memory, since another ball is coming your way again soon, so I’ve learned to forget things quickly and be forward-looking,” Johnson wrote in an email.

A short memory might be necessary to play softball, but the senior has a long past that is deeply rooted in the sport. “I started playing softball when I was 5, back when the girls picked flowers in the outfield and wore their glove on the wrong hand,” Johnson wrote. Instead of following the lead of other littler girls her age, she pursued the same paths as her brothers and father. “My brothers played baseball, and Dad always coached, so I didn’t want to be different from the boys, which is why I told my mom I wanted to play ball.”

She first pitched when she was 8 years old, since the coach would switch the position from girl to girl on the team. As the years went on, she stuck with softball. “When I was little, I could hit the ball pretty hard, and I loved that satisfaction of girls backing up in the outfield when I came up to the plate. I think that’s why I stuck with it.”

Fast-forward to last weekend, and Columbia fans can see that Johnson has continued to make the lives of her opponents difficult. Her stage is bigger now, and instead of instilling fear when she walks up the plate, she creates frustration from the mound. This past Sunday, the senior threw the first no-hitter of her college career against Princeton in the nightcap game of a doubleheader. Afterwards, her father sent her a text reminding her that the last time she had done so, she was 11.

“I think throwing a no-hitter would have been exciting at any time of my career, but yes, as a senior it makes me happy I was finally able to cross that off my bucket list,” she wrote.

Throwing a no-hitter seems like icing on the cake of the excellent career Johnson has had at Columbia. She currently sits at No. 8 on Columbia’s overall all-time batting average. For slugging percentage, she holds the No. 2 spot. In home runs, she tops the all-time list. Her pitching statistics are equally, if not more, impressive. She sits at No. 4 in both number of shutouts and victories recorded. She is No. 3 all-time at Columbia for strikeouts, with 198.

“It will be hard to lose a player of Maggie’s caliber but as a leader on the team, she has worked hard to mentor the young pitchers on our staff,” head coach Kayla Noonan wrote in an email.
Looking back at her time in New York, Johnson can’t imagine having gone anywhere else. In high school, she knew she wanted to go to an Ivy League school. After visiting Columbia, she was hooked—she only filled out one application.

“Looking back at the other schools that were recruiting me, I am 100 percent confident I made the right decision. I have loved the girls on the team, the coaches, the bus rides up to Baker, and even the 6 a.m. practices. My experience at Columbia is something I will reflect back on and only have happy thoughts; I have loved it here and I will truly miss it.”

One of the girls she met on the team was fellow senior and catcher Anne Marie Skylis. The two met back in their freshman year during orientation week. It was thanks to softball that their friendship developed.

“I’ve hardly ever seen her [Johnson] rattled because she focuses on the game one pitch at a time. It’s inspiring to play with her because she works so hard and is completely committed to the team’s needs,” Skylis wrote in an email, describing watching Johnson pitch. “Off the field, she’s a little less serious. She loves to laugh and have fun, and does it both on and off the field.”

Now Johnson has six games left to play for the Lions. Two of them are today, against Fairleigh Dickinson. She will close out her career with a pair of doubleheaders against Penn this weekend.

Less than three weeks from now, she will graduate from Columbia. Her current plans are still up in the air, although she is hoping to work in collegiate sports administration. One thing is for certain: She will miss not only playing at Baker Field but also softball itself. She certainly felt the same way four years ago—it was the reason she wanted to play college ball.

“I wasn’t ready to tie up my cleats back then. I’m still not ready, but at least I got 4 more years than a lot of girls get.”