2025 WCWS: How Karlyn Pickens became softball's hardest thrower - ESPN

OKLAHOMA CITY — More than a decade before Tennessee's Karlyn Pickens fired the fastest softball pitch ever recorded, Dana Fussetti discovered an elementary school-aged pitcher and foretold a prophecy.

Fussetti, a Greenville, South Carolina-based softball coach, was in the middle of a hitting lesson when she first identified Pickens and her overwhelming promise. The eventual All-American ace was just 10 years old at the time. But from across the facility, Fussetti quickly became transfixed by the «lanky beanpole,» who had long arms, polished mechanics and velocity in the mid-50s.

Fussetti spent the next hour watching Pickens throw, so consumed with the talent-beyond-her-years pitcher that she ended up giving the hitting session away for free.

«I could not take my eyes off of her,» Fussetti told ESPN. «After my lesson, I sat down with Karlyn's dad, Phil. I told him: 'If your daughter sticks with softball, she will be the hardest throwing pitcher in the history of the sport.»'

Earlier this spring, Fussetti's prediction came true. In a relief outing against Arkansas on March 24, Pickens was clocked at 78.2 miles per hour, shattering the game's previous all-time mark of 77 mph. Two months later, Pickens broke her own record on the 79.4 mph fireball she threw to Nebraska's Jordy Bahl in the first inning of Game 2 in the Knoxville Super Regional.

«I called her dad after she broke the record against Arkansas,» Fussetti said. «He said, 'Well, you were right.' He really thought I was just trying to blow sunshine up their butts. But I knew this kid was amazing. She's one in a million.»

Tennessee pitcher Karlyn Pickens fires a 78.2 mph strike for the fastest-recorded pitch in college softball history.

Pickens has emerged as not only