More Falcon magic

I've been pondering my return to the blog for the last several days, but being that I'd gone almost a month since posting, I really felt like I wanted to come back with a bang. Well, as they've made a habit of doing over the past number of years, some Messiah College athletes gave me a perfect opportunity.

With a 2-0 win over Coe in this afternoon's national championship game, the Messiah College Lady Falcon softball is your 2009 NCAA champions. The championship, which is the first for the softball program, is the 3rd championship for Messiah teams this academic year, and the 9th for the athletic program overall, with all of them having come since the fall of 2000. I've been over the incredible run Messiah athletics has been on over the past decade a number of times, and it just keeps on rolling. This one, more so than any in recent memory, however, came completely from of the radar at the beginning of the season. The Lady Falcons were 22-21 last year, and didn't even make the championship game of the conference tournament, so I don't think anyone forsaw the magically 43-4 run that ended this afternoon with them hoisting the walnut and bronze trophy that signifies a national championship. I believe I read where a 30 win season was the team's pre-season goal.

However, in softball, as much as in probably any team sport out there, it only takes one 1 player to make a complete and total difference, as long as that player is your pitcher. Such was the case for the Lady Falcons this year, as they rode the arm of freshman sensation Jessica Rhoads to paydirt. The numbers were just staggering - a final record of 28-1, an era of roughly .5, averaging almost 2 strikeouts per inning, holding opponent's to a batting average of about .080, and it all culminated in a 4 game run at the College World Series in which she allowed only 1 run (in the first game of the tournamet) In what will have to go down as one of the all-time great awards "snubs", I believe I read the other day that Rhoads was not named as an All-American. That really speaks to just how much Messiah came out of nowhere - they weren't even ranked until NCAA tournament time, and then they were very near the bottom of the Top 25.

Anyhow, it's just incredible to see another Messiah championship go in the books! Let's go Falcons!

(Oh, and for the record, I just scooped both Messiah's athletics homepage and the official site of the D-III softball national championship with this report. I rock! :-) )