Fordham University Head Softball Coach Bridget Baxter was named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year and freshman pitcher Michelle Schlichtig (Barrington, NJ/Haddon Heights) was named the Atlantic 10 Softball Rookie of the Year this evening at the Atlantic 10 Softball Awards Banquet in Amherst, MA. Schlichtig was also one of two pitchers named to the Atlantic 10 Softball All-Conference team. This is the first major award and All-Conference honor for any Fordham Softball player since the Rams joined the Atlantic 10 in 1995. Schlichtig had an outstanding freshmen season, being honored three times as the Atlantic 10??s Rookie of the Week as well as earning one Pitcher of the Week Citation. Her season has been one to rewrite the Fordham record book, as she has broken six single season pitching records, one career pitching record, and one single season batting record, as well as pitching the first-ever perfect game in Fordham Softball history. On the year, Schlichtig is 22-7 with a 1.37 ERA. She has 155 strikeouts in 198.2 innings pitched and opponents have hit just .212 against her. Schlichtig has broken the Fordham single season pitching records for wins (22), games started (29), complete games (22), shutouts (6), innings pitched (198.2), and strikeouts (155). Her 22 wins also broke the career wins record, which stood at 20. Schlichtig??s ERA (1.37) is the second best mark for the school (1.08 - Christina DeLuca, 1994). She is not just a great pitcher though, as she leads the team in batting at .340, while having 49 hits, 12 doubles, three home runs, and a school record 31 RBI. This is the fourth career conference coach of the year honor for Baxter, as she was a three-time Pennsylvania Athletic Conference (PAC) Coach of the Year at Division III Cabrini College. Baxter becomes the third Fordham coach to receive Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year, joining Frank Schnur (Men's Soccer - 1998) and Nick Macarchuk (Men's Basketball - 1999) as prior winners, and the second Fordham coach this year to win coach of the year, as Dave Clawson won Patriot League Football Coach of the Year in the fall. This season, Baxter, in only her second season at Fordham, has completely turned around a program that had never finished above the .500 mark in 18 seasons. The Rams are 37-17 on the year, with a 10-6 mark in the Atlantic 10 conference, and making their first ever Atlantic 10 Tournament appearance. The 37 overall wins and 10 conference wins shattered the previous school marks of 19 overall wins and seven conference wins in 2001. The team has also set new school marks in 10 different categories and 18 individual school records. After a 14-43 record last season, Fordham has had one of the most improved seasons in NCAA history. The Rams have improved by 24 1/2 games from a year ago, which ties them for the fourth best single season turnaround in the NCAA. Only UCLA in 1999 (33 games), Tulsa in 1999 (30 1/2 games), and Prairie View in 1998 (27 games), had a better single season turnaround. The Fordham Softball team is currently having the best season in its 18-year existence, as they are 37-17 overall, 10-6 in the Atlantic 10. The Rams are the #4 seed at the Atlantic 10 Tournament, which begins on Thursday, May 8 in Amherst, MA, as Fordham will meet #1 seed Massachusetts at 12:00 PM.