Skip To Main Content
Skip To Main Content
Erin Thompson
Tim Flynn

PREVIEW: NCAA National Championship - No. 18 softball vs. No. 2 North Georgia

5/29/2021 12:00:00 AM

DENVER – The Saint Anselm College softball team, ranked 18th in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Division II National Poll, will look to win two games on Saturday at the NCAA Division II National Championship. The Hawks will need a victory against No. 2 North Georgia at 1 p.m. Eastern Time to keep their 2021 season alive.

After posting a day one victory over West Chester on Thursday, the Hawks were downed by No. 12-ranked West Texas A&M University on Friday by a 9-3 score. The Lady Buffs utilized a seven-run inning on the way to the victory. North Georgia logged an 8-4 victory on Friday in an elimination game, downing Valdosta State by overcoming a 3-0 deficit with eight runs in the final three innings of play. The Nighthawks also snapped a 13-inning shutout streak on offense, getting on the scoreboard in a big way to topple the Blazers.

The Northeast-10 Conference regular and post-season champions, Saint Anselm owns a 33-6 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), but have given up 11 runs in its first two games played out in Denver.

North Georgia came into the NCAA National Championship ranked second in the country with 20 shutouts. Additionally, the team has slugged 62 home runs to rank fifth in the nation and the team's fielding percentage also stands as the fifth-finest mark in NCAA Division II (.979).

With a Saint Anselm victory over North Georgia, the Hawks would then take on No. 24-ranked Biola later on in the day at 6 p.m. Eastern Time.

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 eight-team 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 1.01 on the season. Logging a dominant 20-2 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 five strikeouts moving forward to match her own single-season program record of 226 strikeouts, set during the 2019 season. To date, she has 221 strikeouts in exactly 132.1 innings pitched and is limiting the opposition to a batting average of .162.
  • Perry recently broke the program's all-time record for complete games with 78 to her credit (previous record - 76, Lori Cillo '94). 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 (698.1), strikeouts (775), wins (87), appearances (121), games started (113), complete games (79), and shutouts (37).
  • McKenna Smith, a sophomore, has also posted eye-popping numbers within the circle with a 0.82 earned-run average. 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 nine games and racking up a 5-2 record. Across 40 innings, she has allowed just eight earned runs while striking out 29 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 to the Hilltop, earned D2CCA East Region Player of the Year alongside NE10 Northeast Division Player of the Year honors. Across 38 games at Saint Anselm this season, she has rapped 45 hits in 105 at-bats (.429), stroking six doubles, two triples and eight home runs while driving in 30 runs.
  • Klaiber's .429 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 .752 slugging percentage this season ranks second in team history and her on-base percentage of .535 is currently the highest single-season figure.
  • Klaiber has a reached base in 25 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 58-game career at Saint Anselm, Klaiber is batting .381 with 61 hits, 12 doubles, three triples and 12 home runs. She has also walked far more than she has struck out (36-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. 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 .333 as a sophomore, she has collected 41 hits with 12 doubles in just 39 games on the season. She has also driven in a career-high 20 runs for the Hawks.
  • Gracie O'Hara, a freshman, is batting .301 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 seven games in the NCAA postseason.
  • Senior Lauren Washburn (Carmichael, Calif.) is batting .302 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 10 times.
  • Abbie Murrell, in her senior season at Saint Anselm, is a .243 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 .284 with 29 hits in 102 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 (199), at-bats (626) and stolen bases (89) while Thompson is second all-time with 189 games played. Colson ranks second all-time with 205 career hits while Thompson is sixth all-time on the all-time hits list with 166 to her credit.
  • Colson set the all-time program record for base on balls with 62, drawing one free pass against West Texas A&M and is just 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 103 losses and a tie for a winning percentage of .675. In the past four seasons, Gagnon and the Hawks own a commanding 134-33-1 (.800) 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 .302 as a team in 2021, the eighth-best batting average in team history. The program's slugging percentage of .451 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. Owners of a 1.00 team earned-run average entering Saturday's game against North Georgia, that figure still stands as the team record.
  • 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 NORTH GEORGIA
  • The University of North Georgia owns a 42-7 overall record so far in 2021 and raced out to a 17-1 record against Peach Belt Conference competition during the regular season. The one regular-season conference loss was to Young Harris in extra innings on Saturday, Apr. 3.
  • The Nighthawks won the 2015 NCAA Division II National Championship, recording a 54-8 record that season, and also own the second-longest winning streak in NCAA Division II history, racking up 51 consecutive victories between the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
  • The North Georgia softball coaching staff was named the NFCA Regional Coaching Staff of the Year Friday by the association's member head coaches. Friday's announcement marks the sixth time that the North Georgia staff has earned regional recognition in program history.
  • As of May 22, the Nighthawks ranked second in NCAA Division II with 20 shutouts on the season. North Georgia also ranked fourth in home runs per game (1.32), fourth in earned-run average (1.39), fifth in fielding percentage (.979), sixth in slugging percentage (.570), and sixth in WHIP (0.96).
  • Pitcher Kylee Smith entered the NCAA Championship in Denver ranked first in NCAA Division II in hits allowed per seven innings, giving up an average of 3.41 per contest. Laken Chambers ranks second in the country in earned-run average, posting a mark of 0.60 entering the tournament.
  • Margaret Simmons slugged 19 home runs before coming to Denver, ranking fourth in NCAA Division II. 
ALL-TIME vs. NORTH GEORGIA
  • The teams have not met in regular or postseason play. 
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 18-11, including seven straight wins during 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.
  • North Georgia has made each of the last 13 NCAA postseasons, owning a record of 57-26 (0.687). Outside of the team's National Championship in 2015, the Nighthawks have finished third once in that 13-season span.
Print Friendly Version