BLACKSBURG -- Virginia Tech's softball team gathered Tuesday night at the Merryman Center to watch the ESPN2 broadcast of its March 26 exhibition against the U.S. national team. The Hokies sat in theater seats, eating pizza as the game played on two large projector screens.

That they won 1-0 was stunning enough, perhaps the biggest upset in softball history -- a squad that has never advanced in the NCAA tournament defeating a team that has won gold at the past three Olympics.

More impressive, though, was Tech's pitcher, Angela Tincher, a skinny 5-7 senior from rural Botetourt County who received one scholarship offer, Tech, during high school. Because that night in Oklahoma City, she no-hit the U.S. team and walked just one batter.

She blushed Tuesday, her modesty showing, as she relived a game that let the softball world see the dominant pitcher she had become: 2,002 career strikeouts (third in NCAA history), 1,035 career innings (most in ACC history), the foundation for Tech's 41-15 record this season as the Hokies begin defending their ACC tournament title today against Maryland.

"Her form is flawless," color commentator Michele Smith, a former Olympian, gushed during the telecast.

What everyone didn't see that March night, or on television Tuesday, was where that all began -- the thousands of miles and hours that Tincher and her father, Denny, poured into making her the perfect pitcher; the stacks of notebooks in which Denny scribbled tips he learned at coaching clinics; the pink blanket she hung in the family's basement to serve as a pitching backstop and constant reminder of her goals.

She wrote three of them on the blanket in black marker when she was 10, just before she ever pitched in a game. She drew a box next to each goal, a spot to check off its completion. The first two seemed attainable enough: ALLEY CAT PITCHER (her Little League team) and ALL STAR PITCHER. She wrote the third one beneath the other two, as though it were the logical next step in her progression. She scrawled PITCHER and, in front of it, drew the Olympic rings.

When Tincher began playing softball at age 9, Denny knew nothing about it, but he did know their hometown, Eagle Rock, lacked softball experts.

"If she's serious, I'm in trouble," he thought.

So he paid his own way to coaching clinics, the only person there who wasn't actually a coach. He and Tincher traveled to nearby college games, videotaping pitchers, then studied the footage at home.

"With girls in softball, it's 90 percent work ethic, attitude, brains -- and 10 percent talent," Denny said. "I saw that over the years, and that's why I could make her that promise at 10 years old that she could make those goals."

Father and daughter stumbled across practice drills together. Tincher used to play outfield and tired of throwing the ball in overhand. She began throwing underhand, which morphed into a long-toss exercise in which Denny required her to pitch the ball from centerfield on a straight line. Turns out, everyone does long toss to build arm strength, but most coaches allow a looping throw from centerfield, Denny said.

To make Tincher throw faster, Denny had her pitch into the blanket or a chain-link fence, praising her when the blanket snapped hard or the fence rattled loudly. Once, she complained about ruts next to the rubber on a field where they practiced. When they got home, Denny put a brick on the ground and told her to pitch off that, so she would focus on her form no matter what the conditions.

"He would push me, but just to the point where he knew I wanted to be," she said. "I think I never really got content."

As Tincher improved, she and Denny went to extreme lengths to hone her game. They wanted to improve her drop ball -- a pitch that moves downward -- during her senior year at Group A James River High in Buchanan. So they drove nine hours to Nashville, Tenn., stayed overnight, paid $115 for a one-hour lesson with renowned instructor Cheri Kempf and "came back with a drop ball," Denny said.

She now throws her drop ball as effectively as her rise ball (the opposite of a drop) -- something few college pitchers can do, Tech coach Scot Thomas said.

"An incredible vertical zone," he called it.

The Hokies need her to be incredible. She has thrown 1222/3 innings in ACC play. No other pitcher in the league has thrown more than 811/3.

She can throw so much because, "her movement is very efficient," said Donna Papa, North Carolina's 23rd-year coach. "She never looks like she's breaking a sweat or she's working hard."

Sometimes, what you don't see matters most.