She never wanted to know.

Yet with just the bottom of the seventh inning remaining and the Cyclones nursing a 1-0 lead over Louisiana-Monroe, her teammate had found a way to add to the mounting pressure on her freshman frame.

Rachel Zabriskie zeroed in, and then ripped off her last warm-up pitch and watched as her catcher, Alex Johnson, snapped her practice throw down to second base. The infield gathered on her mound as they always did, but this time it was different. They didn’t sound off the standard “1,2,3 . Red Brick Wall” chant she had become so accustomed to. No, they knew what was going on – well, at least one of her teammates did.

She put her hand in the middle, and in unison the team rang out – “Finish it.”

Perhaps the chant’s meaning had solely to do with finishing the game, but thanks to her teammate, who had unspeakably told her she was in the midst of a no-hitter, she knew that “finish it” carried a double meaning, as she prepared for a bid at her second no-hitter in as many weeks.

The group broke for their positions on the field, and Zabriskie cleared her mind. She had just one goal, and if that meant pitching a no-hitter as well, then so be it.

“After somebody told me that I had a no hitter,” Zabriskie said, “I was like, ‘Oh no, I can either let them get a hit and also maybe put them ahead, or I can bear down and not let anybody get a hit’.”

And that’s exactly what Zabriskie did.

She hates stats, and she hates distractions. And to her, that’s all a no-hitter is. Her father loves stats, and was in attendance for her seven inning, 10-strikeout, no-hit masterpiece against Louisiana-Monroe – a stat line any father would be proud of.

But she didn’t stop at two no-hitters. In her very next game Zabriskie, a Texas native, pitched her third no-hitter in three weeks, striking out eight in a five inning 8-0 win over Chattanooga.

The red brick wall chant is meant to inspire the Cyclones to play better defense and to minimize runs. Zabriskie’s pitching is quickly becoming one of the biggest bricks in that wall.

Zabriskie almost went unfound by major schools. In the summer between her junior and senior year – the most important time for recruiting – she injured her groin and couldn’t pitch. She fell off many recruiters’ radar screens, but not ISU pitching coach Gary Hines.

The others’ loss was Iowa State’s find.

“That is the thing about the [no-hitters] is that it is great for her to come into our program when we are trying to build something – and for her to be a little bit overlooked – but to come in and do the things she has done and say ‘Look, I can be a pitcher;’ I think she is really proud of that, and she deserves to be,” Hines said.

Zabriskie was completely unaware that she was pitching a no-hitter until her teammate told her about it. Zabriskie would rather not know, because she and her pitching coach both know that her biggest obstacle is often trying to manage distractions.

“The last two innings there, when I knew it was no hitter, I was like: ‘Don’t think about it, don’t think about it.’ But it’s hard to not think about a no-hitter when somebody has told you this is what is happening,” Zabriskie said. “It is in the back of you mind, and you’re like: ‘I just need to make it a little bit further’.”

That’s where the philosophy and teaching of coach Hines has helped Zabriskie to become a better pitcher. Hines said he had her pegged from the start.

“You can tell, and just talking to her, you know there is a lot going on up there,” Hines said. “But she has the ability to kind of separate what is going on and get focused on what she needs to do.”

That ability comes in part from Zabriskie herself, and from Hines’ reinforcement of living in the present.

“What we try to do with all our players, pitchers especially, because they have to perform every 20 seconds – we try to get them to think about just this pitch, just this one instant,” Hines said. “You are going to have problems, but you need to deal with it so you are ready and confident to just throw this pitch again. I call it living in the present. pitching in the present tense.”

Her no-hitter against Louisiana-Monroe came on a rainy Sunday afternoon. So rainy that the only dry spot for her to warm up was on the road – dodging cars. Zabriskie voiced her displeasure, but when it came time for the game, the no-hitter did all the talking. Overcoming that distraction turned out to be nothing when compared to her dealing with the final out of her no-hitter.

The seventh inning started out promising. Two quick ground balls to first base for easy outs left her with just one batter to finish off before another Cyclone win. And then, a blip.

With the final batter on the ropes, Zabriskie lost control momentarily and walked the tying run to first base. Zabriskie said herself that she has a tendency to get so close, and then slip up, and that is exactly what happened.

“I was just thinking too much – ‘I gotta get this girl out myself,’ instead of thinking, ‘Oh, you have a whole team behind you, it’s OK if she hits a pop fly because somebody is going to catch it’,” she said. “So I tried to pitch around her and I ended up walking her.”

But it was her ability to refocus after she walked the batter that allowed her to get the final out of the game.

She doesn’t remember much about the final at-bat. She wasn’t pitching for the no-hitter, but for the win. When you put it in such simple terms, you see that Hines’ philosophy is getting through.

“When you are in high school you think you know it all. And maybe you do, about the pitches, you know how to hold your hand or snap it, but when you get here it is a whole different mental game,” Zabriskie said.

“It is a whole different thing to learn how to separate each pitch and not think about the pitch you just threw before; and now you have to think about the one you are on now, not thinking so much about batters. It is the whole mental game that he taught me, really.”

The final out of the game was an un-dramatic pop up. There was no celebration. Her catcher didn’t even know it was a no-hitter, and neither did her pitching coach.

That particular no-hitter: not a huge deal. Becoming the career leader for no-hitters at Iowa State in the first three weeks of your freshman year – that is a statement, and a positive sign for the rest of her career and the Cyclone softball program, which is off to its best start ever, at 14-3.

“You just have to build up, yeah it is going great now, but we haven’t gotten to Big 12s,” Zabriskie said. “Just building the whole thing is my favorite part, and that is why I wanted to come here.”

“Knowing that I’m able to at least compete, and I’m a freshman, and I got three more years . I just want to get better.”

This has been a dream start for Rachel Zabriskie’s softball career. Now she has one last thing to do – “Finish it.”