Daily Journal Athlete of the Week: Design Tech’s Adelaide Chuang

“It didn’t really register it was a perfect game until the end,” Chuang said, “and then everyone was congratulating me.”

So far as Design Tech head coach Robert Fletcher is concerned, Chuang could have stayed perfect through a regulation seven innings. Heck, she probably could have gone a lá Billy Chapel for a full nine.

“Without a doubt,” Fletcher said. “She would have gone all seven innings, for sure.”

Chuang has earned Daily Journal Athlete of the Week honors for shining at the center of a spotlight week for Design Tech athletics.

Not only did the freshman fire a perfect game on the softball diamond, the Redwood City charter school’s baseball team recorded two abbreviated no-hitters, with Aidan Tom, Josiah Hernandez and Charles Poole combining for five innings of no-hit ball in the Dragons’ 12-0 win last Tuesday over Summit Tahoma-San Jose, then coming back Saturday to sweep Summit Tahoma in a 10-0 win, with Reilly Sutton, Diego Carrasco and Camren Tom combining for the team’s second straight no-hitter.

Chuang followed her perfecto with another gem of her own. The right-hander came within a hit of recording another no-hitter, leading the Dragons to a 12-0 win over Summit Shasta by firing a one-hit shutout. Summit Shasta senior Nani Ochoa was the only person to get a hit against Chuang all week with a leadoff single in the third. Chuang matched her career-high with 10 strikeouts to preserve the shutout.

“Just so poised as a freshman,” Design Tech assistant coach Ben Lewis said. “So, built to be a pitcher. Pitching rattles a lot of players ... and I don’t think I’ve seen her facial expression change. She’s just steady out there.”

Not only can Chuang pitch, she can hit. Seven games into her short varsity career, the freshman has tallied four multi-hit games, including two four-hit performances and a career-best five-hit outburst March 12 against Jefferson. She is batting .708 on the season, with one of her four-hit games coming in the perfect game against KIPP Collegiate, with two doubles and four RBIs. She added a single and an RBI against Summit Shasta to finish the week 5 for 7.

“Yeah, I try not to let them affect each other,” Chuang said of hitting and pitching, “but they usually do.”

Chuang has been pitching most of her life. She refined her game in the circle as a club player with the NorCal Blast, and has taken to life in a California Grapettes uniform since the Blast joined the Girls Fastpitch Softball organization based in Northern California in 2024.

When she was accepted to Design Tech via the charter school lottery, one of Chuang’s first orders of business was to sign up for the softball team at the school’s on-campus electives fair as part of freshman orientation. In meeting Fletcher, she informed her soon-to-be coach she was pitcher. As far as he was concerned, Chuang’s arrival was perfect timing.

“‘Oh good!,’” Fletcher said of his reaction. “Because our pitcher’s moving on and we don’t have anybody. But I didn’t think anything more of it at the time.”

It took the first day of practice to convince Fletcher he really had something in his two incoming freshmen, Chuang and shortstop Kendall Hom. The two have not disappointed, as Hom in part of a Design Tech one-two punch currently leading the Central Coast Section in hitting. Hom is tops in the CCS at .773 (17 for 22) while senior Ella Lewis ranks second in the section at a .737 mark. Chuang, who takes private hitting lessons for Aragon head coach Liz Roscoe, ranks sixth in CCS.

Hom and Ella Lewis both played key roles in Chuang’s perfecto. Lewis, the Dragons’ catcher, authored the gem as she calls her own pitches. And while third baseman Sonia Teismann recorded two assists at the hot corner — including the play of the game on a slow chopper to the left side to shoot a running throw off her back foot to get the out at first — it was Hom who made the final play of the game, ranging over the middle on a routine grounder to cap the perfecto.

“It was definitely a good day,” Chuang said. “I was feeling confident. I was feeling pretty good.”

It didn’t hurt Chuang’s offense was in fine form as well. Her’s was not the only four-hit day, as senior Caitlin Edwards went 4 for 5 with three RBIs. All told, nine Dragons got in the hit column, with the team totaling 18 hits on the day.

“It was fun,” Chuang said. “It was good energy in the dugout. Obviously, everyone was feeling good. High spirits.”

And while not everyone in the Dragons’ dugout knew there was a perfect game in progress, the coaching staff certainly did.

“We knew,” Fletcher said. “We were not talking during the game. I usually talk. I talk too much sometimes. ... I did not talk. I didn’t even bring it up once. I did not want to be the jinx.”

No jinx. Just perfection — even if Chuang didn’t know it until her Billy Chapel-esque realization in the late innings.

“No, I did not,” Chuang said. “It was just at the end, which was really exciting.”