Softball Garners Four ECAC Honors

Release

Danbury, Conn. – The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) has today announced its Division I Softball All-Stars and the Rams have placed four among the First and Second teams. Jessica Hughes, Lauren Quense, and Madi Shaw have all been selected to the ECAC First Team, while Sydney Canessa earns Second Team honors.
 
A year ago, Hughes was named to the Second Team, while Canessa's fantastic junior campaign was rewarded with First Team recognition. They are the third and fourth Rams to ever earn two ECAC awards, following Jocelyn Dearborn and Jen Mineau.
 
Hughes, Quense, and Shaw were all recently named First Team All-Region for the Mid-Atlantic area, and Canessa earned Second Team, as well.
 
Hughes followed up her stellar rookie campaign, when she was named the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year, with a standout sophomore performance, slashing .370/.510/.685 and being named First Team All-Conference, NFCA First Team All-Region and CoSIDA Academic All-District. Hughes broke three single-season records, tallying 64 runs, 53 walks, and a .510 on-base percentage, the first time a Ram has held one north of .500. The sophomore tallied 67 hits, second-most on the team, with 29 extra-base hits, including six triples, and stole 23 bases. She was part of an exclusive club of 10 players nationwide, which also includes Canessa, to notch at least 40 runs, 40 walks, and 40 RBIs. Hughes already ranks fourth all-time with 59 stolen bases and is up to sixth with 90 walks across her first two campaigns. She also started all 61 contests that she was available for.
 
Quense stepped up as a junior to take the place of an injured Rachel Gillen and kept that momentum going into her senior campaign, beginning the year with a 1-0 shutout victory over #21 Baylor and winning five of the first six Atlantic 10 Pitcher of the Week awards with outstanding preseason performances. The senior set new career-highs across the board with 22 wins, a 2.49 ERA, 37 starts and 18 complete games, striking out 126 over 208.1 frames, and threw the program's 14^th no-hitter with five hitless innings against Bryant in mid-February. The Langhorne, Pa. native finishes her four-year career at Fordham within the top-five of several all-time pitching categories, and elsewhere in the top-10 of two others. For her efforts, Quense was named A-10 Co-Pitcher of the Year, First Team All-Conference, NFCA First Team All-Region, and CoSIDA Academic All-District.
 
Shaw waited until the final day of the 2017 season but broke Elise Fortier's program record for RBI in a season, with 74, recording a run-scoring single in the 9-3 win over Mississippi State in last weekend's NCAA Regional. Shaw led the team with a .385 batting average, 70 hits, 15 home runs, and a .720 slugging percentage, adding 12 doubles, 42 runs, two triples, and 32 walks, compared to 31 strikeouts, which ranks 10^th in a single year at Fordham. The junior fell a vote short of the A-10 Player of the Year voting but rightfully earned First Team All-Conference and NFCA First Team All-Region honors. Shaw tallied three walk-off hits, and four if you including a game-ending run-rule RBI, and set a program record, since the stat was first tracked a decade ago, with 21 multi-RBI performances. 14 of her hits either tied a game or gave the Rams a lead, and nine proved to be game winners. Shaw also enjoyed three multi-home run performances this season, and was named A-10 Player of the Week twice. She started 62 of 63 contests this year, with her lone non-start ending with a walk-off solo home run in the seventh inning of a win over CSUN in early February.
 
Canessa wraps up a tremendous four-year career as one of the program's most consistent and durable players in its history. The Wall, N.J. native has played in every single inning of all 237 contests she stepped foot on campus and ranks within the top-10 of an astounding 14 separate all-time categories, and appears in the top-five in most of them. She already held the program record for runs in a game, with five, and hit by pitches, three, but set two new program records as a senior, including a 6-for-6 performance in a record-setting win at St. Bonaventure on April 19, and becoming Fordham's all-time leader in runs scored, with 193. Canessa slashed .337/.457/.526 this year with a team-high 14 doubles, plus 66 hits, 54 runs, seven home runs, 41 RBI, 41 walks, and 11 stolen bases in 12 attempts. One of the nation's toughest batters to strike out, she fanned just 10 times in 196 at bats. She is a member of the aforementioned exclusive 40-40-40 club along with Jess Hughes, and her 41 walks ranks third all-time in a single year. Perhaps most impressively is her stellar record while patrolling center field, committing just six errors over those 237 games, with none coming this year or during her sophomore campaign. Canessa earned one A-10 Player of the Week honor and was named to the All-Conference First Team, plus NFCA Second Team All-Region, and both CoSIDA Academic All-District and A-10 All-Academic.
 
ABOUT THE ECAC
In the 77 years since its inception, the ECAC has emerged as the nation's largest Conference, ranging in location from Maine to Georgia, and westerly to Missouri. In 2015-16, the ECAC hosted nearly 100 championships in men's and women's sports as the sponsors of over 5,800 varsity teams and 111,000 student-athletes. For more information, visit www.ecacsports.com.