For the second consecutive season, Auburn softball’s Maddie Penta has earned All-America status from the National Fastpitch Coaches Association as the organization announced the full list of honorees on Wednesday.
Penta earned third-team accolades after turning in a record-setting senior campaign. Her selection marked just the 17th overall NFCA All-America honor earned by a Tiger. She is the first Tiger to earn back-to-back All-America honors since Kasey Cooper and Emily Carosone both did so in 2015 and 2016. She is the only pitcher in program history to earn multiple NFCA All-America accolades.
A right-handed pitcher from Chesapeake City, Maryland, Penta currently stands as the SEC strikeout leader with 264, a mark that ranks third nationally. She was the first Tiger in program history to record three straight seasons of at least 250 strikeouts. She averaged 9.1 strikeouts per seven innings this season, ranking 12th nationally.
Penta led the team with a 1.90 earned run average, which ranked eighth in the SEC. She allowed just 55 earned runs over 202.1 innings of work. She posted 16 wins during the 2024 campaign and left Auburn as the winningest pitcher in program history with 76 victories. She tossed 15 complete games with seven shutouts, which ranked third in the SEC.
In her final collegiate start, Penta set Auburn’s single game record for both an individual and a team with 21 strikeouts in a 12-inning marathon versus UCF that went into the early morning hours. The performance tied Omaha’s Kamryn Meyer for the most strikeouts in a single game by any Division I pitcher during the 2024 season. It was the most strikeouts by an SEC pitcher in a single game since Alabama’s Alexis Osorio struck out 21 versus Fordham in March of 2018.
Issuing just 65 walks, Penta’s 4.06 strikeout-to-walk ratio was good for third in the SEC. She’s held opponents to a .184 average at the plate and allowed just 4.64 hits per seven innings to rank fifth in the league.
Penta closed her career ranked in the top seven in 15 Auburn career pitching categories, holding program records in career wins (76), career starts (122) and career combined shutouts (20). She was just one of two pitchers in program history to surpass 900 career strikeouts. This season Penta was part of two no-hitters and two perfect games to become the first Tiger in program history to be credited with multiple perfect games in their career.
