Kelsie Whitmore plays for the Staten Island FerryHawks in the Atlantic League, which is an MLB partner league.

According to USA Today affiliate The Gaston Gazette, Kelsie Whitmore made history on Sunday by becoming the first woman to start an Atlantic League of Professional Baseball (ALPB) game.

In a game between her team, the Staten Island Ferryhawks, and the Gastonia Honey Hunters in Gastonia, North Carolina, the baseball athlete, 23, began in left field and batted ninth.

Whitmore was a pinch runner for the FerryHawks game against Charleston more than a week before beginning, making her the first woman to play in an ALPB game, according to The Gaston Gazette.

The outfielder for the FerryHawks only joined the squad in April. Whitmore previously played entirely for the United States women’s national baseball team from 2014 through 2019, according to MLB.com.

She was a former member of the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs’ Sonoma Stompers. Whitmore and catcher Anna Kimbrell created the first professional all-female battery (a.k.a. pitcher and catcher) with the Stompers in 2016, according to MLB.com.

Whitmore got off to a fast start in Sunday’s game, bringing in a run on a pop fly in the bottom of the first inning. She also fielded two other balls in the game, but came up short later in the game, allowing the Hunters to score two runs. In the third, fifth, and seventh innings, Whitmore batted.

After the game, she told the Gazette, “On the next at-bat, my goal was to be short and quick, try to go the right side and I just got under it. But it’s all about putting together good at-bats, making adjustments at-bat by at-bat and day by day. That’s baseball.”

The Ferryhawks lost 10-5, but the game was a watershed moment for women in baseball, despite the fact that no woman has yet to play in an MLB game.