Saint Anselm Softball Reaches National Championship Game

Posted: Apr 02, 2021

In 2018, the Saint Anselm College softball program became the first team in school history to play for a national championship. After claiming the team’s first East Region title, the Hawks made it all the way to the best-of-three, winner-take-all championship series and finished the year with a 44-13-1 overall record.

The Hawks finished the season as the national runner-up, the best finish by a softball team in school history, and logged three NCAA championship wins against nationally-ranked programs on the way to the season’s historic conclusion. Saint Anselm set a school record with 44 victories in 2018 and finished the season ranked second in the country. They also became just the second NE10 softball program to reach the NCAA Championship.

The impressive national ranking was not only the highest in the history of the softball program but is also believed to be the highest ever for any team at Saint Anselm. The Hawks were the only NE10 team in the year-end top 25 poll, thanks to wins over No. 3 Southern Arkansas (twice), No. 4 Saint Leo, No. 8 West Chester, and No. 23 LIU Post (twice).

With the team’s 44 victories that season setting the standard, Saint Anselm also established new school records in games (58), at-bats (1,587), runs (279), hits (478), doubles (82), runs batted in (243), total bases (629), walks (177), times hit by pitch (31), stolen bases (89), saves (6), shutouts (13), innings pitched (389), chances (1,764), putouts (1,167) and assists (529).

Led by Northeast-10 Conference Coach of the Year Jill Gagnon and the NFCA East Region's Coaching Staff of the Year, Saint Anselm had a record-setting eight student-athletes earn All-NE10 honors in 2018, while three student-athletes earned all-region honors from both the NFCA and the Division II Conference Commissioner's Association.

Prior to the squad’s historic run in Salem, Va., the Hawks won the conference’s Northeast Division regular season title with a 19-2 mark in divisional games before claiming their first East Region crown and advancing as one of the eight regional champions.

The Hawks postseason run started in Garden City, N.Y. where postseason play in the NE10 was being held on the campus of Adelphi University. In the opening game of the NE10 playoffs, the Hawks were blanked for just the second time that year as Pace University earned a 2-0 victory.

Despite the early exit from the NE10 postseason, Saint Anselm earned an at-large berth and hosting rights for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Saint Anselm saw its school-record 13-game winning streak come to an end that day, but the program did make its fifth appearance in the NE10 Tournament in six years.

The Hawks opened the NCAA East 2 Regional with a 3-2 victory over No. 7 seeded Merrimack College where Megan Murrell ’18 provided the go-ahead RBI single in the bottom of the fifth and Morgan Perry (Bethany, Conn.) shut the door by striking out all six batters she faced.

With the game tied 2-2 in the fifth, Murrell singled in current assistant coach Amanda Bickford ’18 from third base with two outs for the eventual game-winning run for Saint Anselm. After replacing Courtney Fisher (Taunton, Mass.) in the sixth, Perry recorded all six of her outs via strikeout to hold Merrimack scoreless and record her first career save.

The following day against crosstown rival and No. 3 seeded Southern New Hampshire University, the Hawks were powered by Perry’s 10 strikeouts and a complete-game performance, leading the team to a 3-1 win over the Penmen. Perry tied the Saint Anselm single-season program record with her 20th victory and Maggie Murphy ’20 launched her first home run of the season.

Needing just one more victory to move on to the East Super Regional, the Hawks had to get past Merrimack, who required two wins to advance itself. Down by a 3-0 score in the early portion of the contest, the resilient Hawks scored the game’s final four runs to move on to the Super Regionals.

Bickford provided the go-ahead two-run double in a three-run fourth inning, while Perry did not allow a run after the first inning to earn her school-record 21st victory of the season. The tandem helped the Hawks to a perfect 3-0 run through the East 2 Regional with all three wins coming against opponents from the NE10’s Northeast Division.

Heading into the NCAA Division II Softball Championship East Super Regional against LIU Post, the Hawks and Pioneers were set to play a best-of-three series with the winner ticketed to play at the NCAA Division II National Championship in Salem.

In the opening game, the Hawks limited LIU Post to one run on just four hits while Perry struck out eight batters with no walks. Shannon Colson knocked in her team’s first two runs of the game with RBI singles in the first and third innings.

Just one win away from a flight to the national championship, the Hawks quickly took care of business as Perry limited LIU Post to three hits and helped the Hawks blank the Pioneers, 5-0, to claim the East Region title. Eight of Saint Anselm's nine starters had at least one hit offensively, led by a 3-for-4 performance by junior Jordan O'Connor ’19.

Over five appearances at the East Regional, Perry went 4-0 with one save and a 0.93 ERA, allowing 16 hits and three walks in 30.0 innings with 37 strikeouts. In the two games against the Pioneers, Perry surrendered just seven hits and one earned run in 14.0 innings, striking out 14 with no walks.

Later that week, the Hawks learned they had earned the No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA Division II Softball Championship, where they would face No. 7 seed Southern Arkansas. The narrative heading into the series was focused primarily on the Muleriders’ prolific offense, who at that point ranked second in all of NCAA Division II with 1.67 home runs per game and a total of 110 long balls on the season.

With the Hawks offense seemingly overpowered through the first five innings, Southern Arkansas had not conceded a hit until the bottom of the sixth inning. That hit, however, dramatically tied the game at one as Erin Thompson (Newton, N.H.) hit her first career home run over the right field fence to completely turn the game around for Saint Anselm.

In extra innings, the Hawks had Colson collect a single up the middle before an O’Connor walk placed runners on first and second. Following a fielder’s choice that put out Colson at third base and created two outs in the inning, Madison Borrelli hit a bouncer that was misplayed twice by Southern Arkansas, allowing the winning run to scamper home.

The celebration kept going for the Hawks into the next game as, for the second consecutive day, the Hawks posted yet another walk-off victory, this time against Saint Leo. Notching just three hits through the game’s first six-and-a-half innings, the Hawks used four singles in the seventh inning to earn yet another victory.

Advancing further into the tournament, the Hawks found themselves facing-off against Southern Arkansas once again. Following by an 11-5 margin to the Muleriders, the Hawks only had one additional loss to play with in the double-elimination portion of the tournament. Requiring just one more victory to make it to the national title series, Saint Anselm delivered once again.

Saint Anselm locked up a 3-0 victory against the eighth-ranked Muleriders, moving on to the championship series for the first time in College history. In the circle, Perry held Southern Arkansas, one of the nation’s top offenses, to a shutout. The Hawks recorded all three of its hits in the game in a three-run third inning. Perry took care of the rest to send the Hawks to the best-of-three series.

In unchartered territory, the Hawks were set to face-off against Southern Indiana for the national championship. With both teams in search of their first NCAA Division II Softball Championship, and Southern Indiana making it all the way as the No. 8 seed, there was intrigue at what was a matchup between two rising programs.

Southern Indiana came out on top in the series pitting unranked opponents, claiming wins of 4-0 and 8-3 in back-to-back games played on the same day. However, Saint Anselm proudly represented the Hilltop on a national scale, becoming the first-ever Saint Anselm athletics program to finish as the national runner-up.

Perry, Bickford, and Thompson earned placement on the Championship’s All-Tournament Team following the tournament’s conclusion.

The softball team’s success in 2018 has paved the way for other teams to achieve greatness, as the Saint Anselm field hockey team remains the active NCAA Division II national runner-up and men’s and women’s basketball won East Region titles in 2019.

Saint Anselm Softball Links of Note:

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