Bronx, N.Y. – The Fordham softball program has enjoyed unprecedented success this decade, winning seven straight Atlantic 10 championships, eight total, and earning nine NCAA Regional bids. In this edition of the #BestoftheRams, two major forces during this time were pitted against one another – the 2009-12 group that laid the foundation for the success to come against the 2014-17 era that combined powerful offense and pitching to four straight titles. In the end, after 24 hours of voting, somehow a winner was determined between these deserving eras – 2009-12 held the majority of over 200 votes.
There has only been one four-year span in the program's history with more games played (when you include the 66 games played in 2008), but the 239 and 237 games played by these respective eras come in at numbers two and three, with both winning at least two-thirds of their games, with 160 and 159, respectively. The most games won in school history came in 2010 when the Rams won 49; the second-most came in 2017 when they won 46.
The 2009-12 era "only" won one Atlantic 10 championship, in 2011, but earned the program's lone NCAA At-Large bid because of their incredible resume. That team, buoyed by the one-two knockout punch of All-American sophomore Jen Mineau and junior
Chelsea Plimpton, who powered the staff to a combined 1.34 ERA to lead all of Division I, only suffered its ninth and 10
th losses of the year in the championship doubleheader at Massachusetts, finishing with a 49-12 record. At the NCAA Regional in College Park, Md., the Rams won their first-ever Regional contest, 2-1, over the hosts, Maryland, downed the Terrapins again, 5-2, a day later, but fell twice to nationally-ranked Oklahoma twice, including in the final. A year later, the Rams also won their Regional-opening game, 2-0, also against the hosts, this time Penn State. All told, each era accounted for three of the program's seven NCAA wins.
Overall, over those four years the Rams went 160-79 with two Players of the Year in Beckah Wiggins (2010) and Jocelyn Dearborn (2011), although neither Mineau nor Plimpton garnered Pitcher of the Year honors, though Jamie LaBovick was named Rookie of the Year in 2010. 13 different Rams earned All-Atlantic 10 honors, including nine First Team honorees. 2010 also brought the program's first NFCA All-Region Coaching Staff of the Year honor and saw five players garner First Team accolades. Head coach
Bridget Orchard was also named the A-10 and ECAC Coach of the Year. 2011 saw Mineau named an All-American again, while the junior was also named an Academic All-American. Mineau is now deservedly in the Fordham Hall of Fame and holds nearly every single program pitching record (she's only second in saves, with 12) and finished her career with 10 no-hitters, half of which were perfect games. Plimpton tossed her lone no-hitter in 2011.
Wiggins's 2010 season ended with a then-record 60 RBI, while also setting the single-game record with three home runs during the campaign, and the program's second-ever Player of the Year honor. She graduated a year later with a .287 career average and 21 home runs. Where Mineau's name appears 48 times in the record book, Dearborn's appears 26 times. She remains the school's leader in hits (257), RBIs (175), at-bats (802), total bases (476), doubles (54), and games started (245) and played (246), never missing a contest and starting all but one during her four years in the Bronx. Though the offense never finished within the top-five in single-season stats, the pitching staff is all over the record book, unsurprisingly, while the 2010-12 Rams make up the top-three in fielding percentage, as well.
The 2014-17 era brought home the program's third through sixth Atlantic 10 championships with the Rams winning exactly two-thirds of their games with a 159-78 combined record. They also boasted two Players of the Year in Elise Fortier ('14) and Lindsay Mayer ('16) but also two Pitchers of the Year (Michele Daubman in 2014 and
Lauren Quense in 2017), plus a Rookie of the Year in 2016 for Jessica Hughes and three Coach of the Year honors for Orchard. This era steamrolled the competition in the Atlantic 10, setting multiple single-season school records on offense – perhaps most impressively walking more than they struck out in 2017 (269 to 262) to shatter the on-base percentage record at a .409 clip, as well as setting a new mark for batting average (.310, one point away from the 2015 squad's previous record) and RBIs (351).
This era featured 12 different First Team All-Conference members and four others garnering Second Team honors. At the NFCA level, 11 Rams earned at least one All-Region honor, while 2017 brought Orchard and her staff their second Coaching Staff of the Year for the Atlantic region. Fortier was also named the ECAC Player of the Year, while five others were named All Stars during those four years.
Fortier's name appears in the record book 27 times as her senior campaign in 2014 gave way to the offensive firepower of the years to follow. She remains the program's all-time leader in home runs, with 46, and slugging percentage, with a near-untouchable .695 career mark. Sydney Canessa appears 21 times, namely becoming the school's all-time leader in runs, with 193, while also setting a new single-game record by going 6-for-6 at St. Bonaventure during her senior year in 2017. The squad in that game scored a record 23 runs on a record-tying 21 RBIs.
Pitching-wise, the 2014-17 era saw two no-hitters – one by Rachel Gillen in 2014 and one by Quense in 2017. The duo are featured heavily in every pitching category in the record book, with both tied for fifth all-time with 48 victories.
Look out later today on social media for the beginning of our Men's Soccer #BestoftheRams!
