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2021 NCAA Division II Softball National Championship

PREVIEW: NCAA National Championship - No. 18 softball vs. No. 12 West Texas A&M

5/28/2021 1:00:00 AM

DENVER – The Saint Anselm College softball team, ranked 18th in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division II National Poll, takes on the No. 12-ranked Lady Buffs from West Texas A&M University on Friday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time in Game 6 of the NCAA Division II National Championship.

The Northeast-10 Conference regular and post-season champions, Saint Anselm owns a 33-5 overall record after dropping just one contest in the East Region Championship, hosted by the Hawks in Manchester, N.H. The Hawks entered the NCAA Championship with the best earned-run average in all of NCAA Division II (0.77). On Thursday, senior Abbie Murrell (Scarborough, Maine) drove in the game-winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning, propelling Saint Anselm to a 3-2 victory over West Chester University of Pennsylvania in the Hawks' NCAA Championship opener.

West Texas A&M, the No. 12 team in NCAA Division II, eked out a 1-0 victory over Grand Valley State in the final game of the day on Thursday, using an infield RBI single to account for its lone run of the day. The Lady Buffs came to Denver ranked first in NCAA Division II in doubles (95) while ranking fifth nationally in total runs (355). The Lady Buffs also rank fifth in slugging percentage while ranking in the top 10 in batting average, hits, home runs, scoring, stolen bases and triples.

The winner of Friday's contest will move on to a Saturday contest under the lights at 8:30 p.m. EST with just one loss. Friday's loser will have to play an elimination game at 3:30 p.m. EST on Saturday.

Single-game tickets are available and a Live Video broadcast will air on NCAA.com throughout the championship. For more information, check out MSU Denver's Championship Central page.

SCOUTING SAINT ANSELM
  • Saint Anselm has made it to the National Championship with the help of its arsenal of pitching weapons. Morgan Perry earned NFCA First Team All-America honors on Tuesday, becoming the first student-athlete in program history to accomplish that feat.
  • The two-time All-America selection and two-time D2CCA East Region Pitcher of the Year has logged an earned-run average of 0.70 on the season. Logging a dominant 20-1 overall record, she has also tallied 19 complete games, 12 shutouts, two no-hitters and recorded the program's first-ever perfect game, doing so against Saint Michael's on Apr. 24.
  • On a national scale, Perry came into the national championship leading all NCAA Division II pitchers by averaging 12.2 strikeouts per seven innings, also ranking in the top-10 nationally with 215 strikeouts. Her mark of 3.81 hits allowed per seven innings was ranked fourth nationally as of Thursday.
  • The senior needs just six strikeouts moving forward to match her own single-season program record of 226 strikeouts, set during the 2019 season. To date, she has 220 strikeouts in exactly 130 innings pitched and is limiting the opposition to a batting average of .157.
  • Perry recently broke the program's all-time record for complete games with 78 to her credit (previous record - 76, Lori Cillo '94). In 11 of her last 14 games pitched, she has surrendered four or less hits to her opponents while only allowing nine total runs in that span. Earlier in the season, Perry broke the program's single-season shutouts record with 12, passing Lisa Petell '99 who achieved the feat in 1996. 
  • In her career, Perry is the owner of all-time program records in innings pitched (696), strikeouts (774), wins (87), appearances (120), games started (112), complete games (79), and shutouts (37).
  • McKenna Smith, a sophomore from Old Town, Maine, has also posted eye-popping numbers within the circle with a 0.67 earned-run average that places her fourth nationally, just one spot behind Perry, as of Thursday. Smith also ranks 17th in the country as of the last NCAA national rankings report by allowing just 4.47 hits per seven innings and ranks within the top-50 in the country in strikeouts per seven innings (8.0) and WHIP (0.95).
  • Senior Courtney Fisher (Taunton, Mass.) has also seen action in the circle for the Hawks in 2021, pitching in seven games and racking up a 4-2 record. Across 32-and-two-thirds innings, she has allowed just eight earned runs while striking out 21 batters. She also owns an extensive track record of pitching in the NCAA Championship, taking the ball three times for the Hawks in Salem, Va. during the 2018 campaign as a freshman.
  • On the offensive and defensive side of the ball, Bre Klaiber, a transfer shortstop from Ironton, Ohio, earned D2CCA East Region Player of the Year alongside NE10 Northeast Division Player of the Year honors. Across 37 games at Saint Anselm this season, she has rapped 45 hits in 102 at-bats (.441), stroking six doubles, two triples and eight home runs while driving in 30 runs.
  • Klaiber's .441 batting average is the second-best mark in single-season team history, trailing just the .447 average that Michelle Hughes '94 recorded in 1993 when she had 34 hits in 76 at-bats. Her .775 slugging percentage this season is tops in team history and her on-base percentage of .544 is currently the highest single-season figure.
  • Klaiber has reached base in 24 consecutive games, the longest such streak of the 2021 season by a Hawks student-athlete. She had also hit safely in 10 consecutive games, one of three Hawks to do so in 2021, from Apr. 13 through Apr. 30, batting .633 with 19 hits in 30 at-bats.
  • In a 57-game career at Saint Anselm, Klaiber is batting .389 with 61 hits, 12 doubles, three triples and 12 home runs. She has also walked far more than she has struck out (35-to-13).
  • Klaiber was a two-year standout at LIU Post, winners of the 2019 NCAA Division II East Region Championship before the institution merged with LIU Brooklyn and ceased its athletics programs. She earned East Coast Conference (ECC) Rookie of the Year merits in 2018 and, most recently, competed at the NCAA Division II National Championship level in 2019 at MSU Denver wearing the green and gold of the Pioneers.
  • Defensively, Saint Anselm came into the National Championship ranked 49th in NCAA Division II with a .967 fielding percentage. The Hawks are bolstered on defense by two-time NE10 Defensive Player of the Year Kylie Fitzpatrick (Danville, N.H.). Committing just one error in her Saint Anselm career at the keystone, the local product has earned First Team All-East Region honors from the NFCA, Second Team All-East Region honors from D2CCA and First Team All-Conference merits from the NE10.
  • Fitzpatrick has also chipped in on offense, ranking third in the NE10 in runs per game (0.86) as of Thursday and eighth with 0.3 doubles per game. Batting a career-high .336 as a sophomore, she has collected 40 hits with 11 doubles in just 38 games on the season. She has also driven in a career-high 19 runs for the Hawks.
  • Gracie O'Hara, a freshman from Shrewsbury, Mass., is batting .310 in her first season on the Hilltop. She has logged 31 hits with 12 of those going for extra bases. She has six doubles and three home runs, tying for the team lead with three triples. She has hit safely in five of her last six games in the NCAA postseason.
  • Senior Lauren Washburn (Carmichael, Calif.) is batting .310 for the Hawks while senior Shannon Colson (Rochester, N.H.) rounds out the Hawks cadre of .300+ hitters. Combined, Washburn and Colson have struck out just nine times.
  • Abbie Murrell, in her senior season at Saint Anselm, is a .247 career hitter after picking up the game-winning hit on Thursday against West Chester. She has five career home runs and, as a senior, is batting .293 with 29 hits in 99 at-bats. She began her career as a pitcher, seeing action in the 2018 NCAA Division II National Championship down in Salem, Va.
  • Washburn's 30 runs driven in is the seventh-most in a single season and trails her career-high mark of 31 RBI set in the 2019 season. She has driven in two or more runs in 10 games, the only student-athlete to have double-digit games with multiple runs driven in.
  • Colson is the program's all-time record-holder in games played (198), at-bats (624) and stolen bases (89) while Thompson is second all-time with 188 games played. Colson ranks second all-time with 204 career hits while Thompson is sixth all-time on the all-time hits list with 164 to her credit.
  • Colson needs just one walk to set the all-time program record for base on balls and is four runs scored shy of setting the team's new all-time mark.
  • Head Coach Jill Gagnon is in the midst of her eighth season on the Hilltop where she is the winningest coach in team history. Since joining the Hawks prior to the 2014 season, she has racked up 214 wins against just 102 losses and a tie for a winning percentage of .677. In the past four seasons, Gagnon and the Hawks own a commanding 134-32-1 (.805) overall record.
  • Assistant Coach Amanda Bickford '18 is one of the most decorated student-athletes in program history, earning placement on the 2018 NCAA Championship All-Tournament Team after hitting safely in 10-of-11 games on the brightest stage. A First Team All-East Region performer, Bickford posted a .406 batting average, leading the Northeast-10 Conference in hits (88) and doubles (16) as a senior.
  • Bickford finished her career as the program's all-time hits leader with 237 across a four-year career. She also saw her career end ranked second in batting average (.389) and total bases (273), fourth in runs scored (97), fifth in on-base percentage (.414), fifth in games played (166) and 10th in doubles (30). Also a member of the Hawks volleyball team, Bickford saw action in 71 career matches, logging 247 kills while hitting at a .241 career percentage.
SAINT ANSELM QUICK HITS
  • Saint Anselm is batting .304 as a team in 2021, the seventh-best batting average in team history and the highest since the 2010 season where the Hawks hit .305. The program's slugging percentage of .454 to date is the second-highest in team history.
  • The Hawks have swiped just 22 bases in 2021, a stark contrast from the team's 2018 season where it finished as the NCAA Division II national runner-up. That season, Saint Anselm stole 89 of out of a possible 99 bases which was 26 more than the second-place season in team history (63, 2010 season).
  • The team's nation-leading earned-run average of 0.77 entering the NCAA Championship is the far-and-away program record, eclipsing the pandemic-shortened 2020 season where Saint Anselm pitchers logged a 1.11 ERA in just 132 innings of work.
  • The Hawks have won 33 games in 2021, tying for third all-time in program history. Saint Anselm has won 33 or more games in just three prior campaigns (33 - 1997, 41 - 2019, 44 - 2018).
  • Saint Anselm has not posted a fielding percentage lower than .968 in each of the past three seasons, the top three fielding campaigns in team history (.973 - 2019, .971 - 2020, .968 - 2021).
  • Against Adelphi in the NCAA postseason, Erin Thompson belted her first home run of the season and the sixth of her career. Out of those six long balls, three of them have come in postseason play and the bomb against Adelphi was the second to occur in the NCAA tournament. 
  • Thompson's first home run in the NCAA tournament came against Southern Arkansas in the National Championship on May 24, 2018 - the Hawks were without a hit through the game's first five innings, but Thompson's home run to right field tied the game at one in the bottom of the sixth inning. Saint Anselm went on to win its first game at the National Championship by a 2-1 margin in extra innings.
SCOUTING WEST TEXAS A&M
  • Winners of the 2014 NCAA Division II National Championship, the Lady Buffs carry a 39-11 record into play on Friday against Saint Anselm. West Texas A&M revived softball as a varsity sport in 2006 after a 24-year hiatus. Since that first modern-day varsity season, the Lady Buffs own a dominant 593-284 (.676) overall record and have won 50 or more games three times in their history.
  • Competing in the Lone Star Conference, West Texas A&M won all three games in the LSC Championship to claim its fifth league title. The Lady Buffs won via run rule (10-0, 5 inn.) in the title bout as freshman Madison Johnson hit a grand slam to key the victory. She was later named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.
  • West Texas A&M entered the NCAA National Championship with the country's eighth-best team batting average (.342). The team averages 7.24 runs per game, ranking ninth in the country as of Thursday.
  • Ruby Salzman leads NCAA Division II in hits entering the National Championship with 80 to her credit. Against Grand Valley State on Thursday, she logged her 81st hit of the season - that infield single produced the game's only run in a 1-0 victory for the Lady Buffs.
  • Shanna McBroom, the Diamond Sports/NFCA Division II Catcher of the Year trails Salzman by six hits with 75 on the season, but ranked third in Division II entering play in Denver. Both Salzman (.455) and McBroom (.439) are hitting well over .400 on the season with the duo combining to post 50 extra base hits on the year.
  • Kyra Lair leads West Texas A&M in the circle, logging a 2.59 earned-run average with 176 strikeouts in 154.1 innings of work. She owns a 21-5 overall record and is followed by Emilee Wilson and her 14-6 won-loss record. Wilson has an ERA just shy of three (2.99), pitching to contact with just 66 strikeouts in 114.2 innings of work for the Lady Buffs.
  • Head Coach Michael Mook became the program's third leader in June 2019 and has logged a 53-20 (.726) record since his tenure began.
ALL-TIME vs. WEST TEXAS A&M
  • The teams have not met in regular or postseason play. West Texas A&M became a varsity program once again in 2006 after a lengthy hiatus while Saint Anselm has sponsored varsity softball since the 1981 season.
ALL-TIME, NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP
  • The Hawks are in the midst of their third consecutive (and fifth-ever) NCAA tournament appearance (2002, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021).
  • In the NCAA postseason, the Hawks have totaled a record of 18-10, including seven straight wins in the 2018 NCAA run. Saint Anselm has hosted the past three straight regionals along with the two super regionals from 2018 and 2019.
  • In the Hawks first ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament, the Hawks defeated C.W. Post, 7-1, in 2002.
  • The team's 2018 national runner-up finish was the first for any Saint Anselm varsity athletics program.
  • West Texas A&M is making its 10th appearance in NCAA Division II postseason play and owns a record of 31-21 (.596). The program won the 2014 NCAA Division II National Championship.
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