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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.