Daily Journal Softball Player of the Year: Notre Dame Belmont’s Alli Lui

Prior to the 2025 season, Lui and her Tigers found themselves without a head coach. When Lui arrived as a freshman, she played for one year under Kelly McDonald, before Alex Booker took over for two seasons. NDB softball was going through myriad changes, however, shifting from the WBAL to the Peninsula Athletic League. And somewhere along the line, the varsity program at the small private school of approximately 450 students found itself without someone to drive the ship.

“It was a bit of a scramble, quite honestly ... and we still didn’t have a coach at that time,” Lui said.

So, Lui turned to her travel softball pitching coach at Warrior Academy, Nick Dykes, and implored him to take the reins. Dykes, who had recently stepped down as Hillsdale’s head coach, was looking to focus on coaching travel club.

That’s when Lui started greasing the wheels. She approached him one day at the Warrior Academy’s San Mateo facility with a friendly: “‘Hey Nick, how are you? Would you ever come to Notre Dame?’”

“It started out as a little bit of a joke,” she said.

Jokes aside, Dykes took the request seriously. And just like that, NDB had a new head softball coach.

“How are you going to say no to someone who is as cool as a human being as she is?” Dykes said. “You just can’t say no to her.”

There began the most unique season in Lui’s varsity career. Sure, she was a senior, and senior years in their own right are always some kind of wonderful. For Lui, however — in a 2025 season that would become known as the year of the underclassman on the Peninsula softball scene — softball life at NDB got sui generis when she realized she was the only senior on the Tigers’ roster.

To add more intrigue, many of the 11 players on roster had no varsity experience, while a few had little to no competitive softball experience at all.

“It’s a pretty small school and we had four of our starters were primarily from low club teams and basically rec teams,” Dykes said. “And, yes, playing varsity-level softball, some of the freshmen and sophomores never had the chance to play at the JV level where they can ease into it. So, it was kind of like: ‘You’re getting thrown into the fire, and let’s go.’”

Based solely on its merits, Lui’s senior season was extraordinary. In the circle she posted a 14-2 record with a 0.65 ERA, totaling 170 strikeouts through 108 1/3 innings — all career-high numbers. At the plate, NDB’s cleanup hitter slashed .417/.452/.617 with three home runs and 27 RBIs, all also career-highs.

Not only was she named PAL Ocean Division Pitcher of the Year, Dykes said Lui would have been in consideration for PAL Ocean Player of the Year as well had it not been for teammate Hailey Truong earning the award after finishing with an eight-game hitting streak, during which the junior went 14 for 23 to improve her batting average to a team-leading .453.

Oh, but the intangibles. Just as Lui had taken it upon herself prior to the season to help the program by asking Dykes to coach, she again took it upon herself to embrace her isolated senior status and use it to mentor her younger teammates.

“It was a little bit more ‘eyes on me,’ but I didn’t really feel the weight of that pressure,” Lui said. “I just wanted to be someone that could lead my team the best that I could ... and overall I think that translated into my pitching and how I was performing.”

Enter freshman Eliana Crespin, who took over behind the plate when NDB’s regular catcher Skylar Loo moved to third base.

“I just truly loved her as a teammate,” Lui said. “She was just so open to learning. So open to getting better.”

Crespin caught every one of Lui’s pitching appearances, while tapping into her potential at the plate by batting .343.

“Again, that’s Alli,” Dykes said. “She’s going to talk to Eliana. She’s going to make sure she’s good, and when she messes up, she’s not going to freak out at her. ... Just a really good mentor.”

Still, no one knew what to expect from NDB — with its untested roster playing in a new league — especially Lui. While it’s true, Lui is aces in the congeniality department, when it comes to her competitive gene, she personifies, at her core, the eye of the tiger.

In other words, Lui don’t like to lose. She was part of two WBAL championship teams in 2022 and ’23, with the Tigers finishing as CCS runners-up both those years, including a Division I run in ’22. Prior to this season, however, Lui dialed back her expectations.

“We were just not really sure who was going to come out, what kind of program we were going to be having,” Lui said. “So, for me, it was a shift in mindset — maybe we’re not going to make it as far.”

Surprise, surprise, NDB enjoyed a superb season, capturing a co-championship in the PAL Ocean Division — shared with Mills, the public school right down the street from Lui’s Millbrae home — and posted a 20-5-1 overall record, the program’s first 20-win season since 2017.

“We started off the season amazing,” Lui said. “We got a couple wins under our belt and we just kind of kept on that roll.”

Lui’s resume is much richer than just her NDB accolades. She could write a book about club sports for all the organizations with which she’s played. In softball, she started with the Millbrae Mischief, moved to the Cal Nuggets when she was 10, then to the All-Pro Blitz (now the Nor Cal Blitz), then back to the Mischief before following her NDB coach McDonald to Warrior Academy after her freshman year.

And that’s just the softball club. Lui also played three years of volleyball at NDB, and played for both SF Elite and Encore on the club circuit.

She has even been coached by two former Daily Journal Athletes of the Year — with the NDB softball team in assistant coach Aubrie Businger, the 2017 Daily Journal Girls’ Athlete of the Year; and with the NDB volleyball team in assistant coach Katie Smoot, the 2016 Daily Journal Volleyball Player of the Year.

Now, Lui will add to her resume by pitching at the NCAA Division I level at Georgetown University. And while she hasn’t got to meet Georgetown legend Patrick Ewing — yet — she is eyeing the same tack that made her one of the all-time Notre Dame Belmont (and San Mateo Daily Journal) greats.

“When I was looking for a fit going through my college search process, I was looking for something that had academics and athletics,” Lui said. “Georgetown just fit that for me. Amazing program, amazing location, amazing school. ... So, I couldn’t imagine a better fit for my next four years.”