Maybe Jack Houston should pitch more often when he’s ill.

Despite feeling lousy with congestion and all other annoying symptoms that go with a common cold, the right-hander and Vienna resident still hurled a rare perfect game on that May day for his NOVA Lions varsity high-school baseball team.

Houston struck out nine and threw just 76 pitches in a 7-0 seven-inning victory over Avalon in Wheaton, Md., in a first-round Old Line Conference tournament-playoff game.

Houston is a senior at private Dominion Christian School in Reston. The NOVA Lions are a high-school team for home-schooled and other students at smaller private-schools without baseball teams.

“I woke up that day feeling like you know what,” Houston said. “Once I started pitching later that day, I stopped thinking about being sick.”

In recording the perfect game, the 6-foot-4 Houston retired all 21 batters he faced, including the last out being a called third strike on a 3-2 fastball. That was his second full-count of the game.

There also was earlier perfect-game-saving drama in the seventh inning when Lions’ first baseman Zack Gimon made a diving catch to rob the leadoff hitter in that frame of a base hit. Houston fanned the second hitter that inning, then ran the count full on the third hitter.

On his pitch prior to the final strikeout, the ball sailed behind the batter and would have been ball four, had the ball not nicked the bat for a foul ball. 

“That was my worst pitch of the game. After that pitch, I said to myself, ‘Come on now, throw a strike,’ Houston said about the game-inning third strike. “My fastball and slider were both working well during the game, and I threw a few changeups and knuckle curves.”

The perfect game began when Houston retired the three Avalon hitters he faced in the first inning on a groundout, strikeout and lineout. He induced multiple ground-ball outs.

With the bat in the win, Houston doubled, had an RBI and he walked.

Coincidentally, two seasons earlier on the same date, Houston threw a shutout against Avalon.

In the Lions’ next game, a season-ending  loss, Houston was feeling better, but broke his right wrist sliding into second base to end his eventful couple of days.

With a fastball clocked in the mid-80s, Houston led the Lions in innings pitched and strikeouts this past season and was an ace of the staff. He played first base when not pitching, batted third or fourth in the order and hit two home runs during the 2023 campaign.

Houston was a soccer goalie and forward on the basketball team for the Dominion Christian School, which did field those sports.

Growing up in Vienna, Houston played both Vienna Little League and Vienna Babe Ruth baseball.

Houston has committed to play college baseball for Division III Grove City College in Pennsylvania next spring.