The 20-year-old was handed a surprise start by coach Gavin Hunt, with the vastly experienced Bradley Grobler and Ashley du Preez on the bench, and did not disappoint with three well-taken goals.
His first was a lovely run and composed finish from the edge of the box, before two near-identical headers from pinpoint crosses by fellow academy product Raoul Daniels sealed his history-making milestone.
Daniels is himself only 19 and was playing in just his third game as a professional.
Plaatjies is also only the third player in Stellenbosch’s history to score a hat-trick after Stanley Muishond, who scored a treble against Mthatha Bucks in the Motsepe Foundation Championship, and Iqraam Rayners, who scored a remarkable five against Polokwane City in the Betway Premiership in 2024.
Plaatjies has not come out of nowhere. He was part of the Stellenbosch side that won the 2023/24 DStv Diski Challenge and travelled to England for the 2024 Premier League Next Generation Cup.
He scored a superb winner against Aston Villa as Stellies went on to win the tournament, beating Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in the final.
His mother passed away when he was young and he dedicated his treble against Gallants to her.
Plaatjies became the 134th player to net a treble, or more, in the PSL era. In all, there have been 191 hat-tricks scored since the start of the 1996/97 season, with at least one in every campaign bar 2017/18, when there were none.
In the 1998/99 season, when Sundowns pipped Kaizer Chiefs to the title, a record 15 hat-tricks were scored.
Pollen Ndlanya leads the individual list with six hat-tricks. Four of them were scored for Chiefs and one each during his brief tenures at AmaZulu and Pirates.
The fastest hat-trick in South African football remains the five minutes it took James Chamanga to score three times between the 20th and 25th minutes for Swallows against Platinum Stars in December 2007. He went on to add two more late in the game for a five-goal haul.