This Month's News
July2015

NCAA crowns three national softball champs

July 10, 2015

by . Bill Plummer

 

NCAA crowns three national softball champs
By Bill Plummer

The college softball season has ended and three more national champions 
were crowed. Florida repeated as the Division One champion,University 
of  North Georgia won its first Division Two title and Tufts University 
captured its third consecutive Division Three championship.

Winning the national title might have been your team's goal but as we 
all know only three out of the hundreds of teams that play in these 
three NCAA divisions end up winning  the national championship.

Perhaps Tufts pitcher Allyson Fournier sums up the quest  for a national 
champion and what many college softball players aspire to or hope for 
during their college career.

“It’s what you dream of when you’re a kid,” Fournier said. “It’s what 
you want to do when you play sports. I can’t even describe the feeling 
of being here. The first time [we won the title] was incredible. The 
second time it was like ‘wow, this is unreal.’ And now, I can’t even 
believe that this happened."

She probably wasn't the only person not believing what had happened. 
What was amazing about the third consecutive title was that Tufts 
finished the year 51-0 in becoming the first Division III softball team 
to win three national titles in a row.

Tufts had to come from behind to capture the title, erasing a 2-0 
deficit with six runs in the top of the sixth and another in the seventh 
to defeated Texas-Tyler, 7-4 in Salem, Va. It was the 11th time Salem 
hosted this national championship.

The victory extended Tufts' NCAA Division III record winning streak to 
53 games, dating back to the two wins which clinched the 2014 national 
title against Salisbury last spring. The win also tied Tufts for the 
most wins in a season (51) with the 2011 Linfield team.

The championship capped a brilliant career for Fourier who was named the 
2015 Honda Dill Athlete of the Year for the second time. She won the 
award for the first time in 2013.

“I’m incredibly honored to be selected as Honda’s DIII Woman Athlete of 
the Year again considering all of the other great candidates in other 
sports who were up for the award,” Fournier said. “This past month as 
been like a dream. From winning our third NCAA championship, to pitching 
professionally and now being able to join the best collegiate female 
athletes in the country in LA in a few weeks is just amazing.”

Over her career, Fournier has led Tufts to three-straight national 
titles, a 111-5 record and two NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player 
awards. The senior from South Windsor, Conn., is a four-time National 
Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) first-team All-American and a 
four-time NESCAC Pitcher of the Year.

This season she led the nation in earned run average (0.20), shutouts 
(22), strikeouts (422), strikeouts per seven innings (14.0) and 
victories with a 35-0 mark. She threw five no-hitters including two 
perfect games this spring and had a scoreless innings streak of 105.1 
that is the longest ever in Division III history. She is the first 
student-athlete in the history of the award to earn the honor twice.

“Tufts and Tufts Softball are truly grateful to Honda and The College 
Women Sports Awards for recognizing Allyson with the DIII Honda Athlete 
of the Year award again,” said Tufts Softball coach Cheryl Milligan. “It 
was a great year for women’s athletics. For Allyson and our team to be 
able to celebrate all of the accomplishments in LA will be a perfect way 
to cap the year. Allyson is very deserving of her part in this.”

While Tufts was winning its third national title, University of North 
Georgia was winning its first NCAA national title in Division II after 
being no-hit in its first game in Oklahoma City and proceeding to win 
five games in a row for the first NCAA softball title in school history. 
The Nighthawks finished the year 54-8, which was the most wins in the 
history of the softball program.

The Nighthawks blanked Dixie State 5-0 in  the championship game thanks 
to timely hitting and the pitching of  Courtney Pooke, NFCA Pitcher of 
the Year.

"It's amazing. It's indescribable to go out like this," UNG senior 
shortstop Tiffanie Burns said. "You never want it to end. To go out with 
a national championship is just unbelievable. The girls that I've got to 
play with were a blessing and I appreciate every single one of them."


Poole (47-4) showed the country why she earned National Player and 
Pitcher of the Year honors with a two-hit shutout performance in 
Division II's biggest game of the season. The two hits were the only 
base runners of the day for Dixie State as Poole did not allow any free 
passes on the day. The UNG ace struck out four.

The NCAA National Championship is the first in school history at the 
University of North Georgia and is the 35th in the Peach Belt Conference 
and the third in softball. A PBC team had not won the softball title 
since 1996.

The Division One championship followed the Division Two championships a 
week later and defending champion Florida repeated as the national 
champion, becoming only the third team to repeat as national champion.

The Gators will graduate Lauren Haeger, named the MOP of the WCWS, among 
others, but they also lost assistant coach Kenny  Gajewski ( prounced ' 
GUY-ehh-ski') who has been named to succeed Rich Wieligman as the head 
coach at Oklahoma State University. Wieligman was fired May 11 after 
nine seasons including a record of 21-31 in 2015.

Who knows what will happen next season, but for the hundreds of teams 
that play either Division One, Two or Three, the goal is to win a 
national championship although coaches and players may change from year 
to year. It's what makes college softball worth watching and writing about.



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