MONTCLAIR, NJ - Messiah College isn’t just a soccer champion anymore. Falcon freshman right-hander Jessica Rhoads (Dillsburg, PA) struck out 13 batters and Messiah tallied single runs in the fourth and seventh innings, defeating Coe College, 2-0, in the national title game of the 2009 NCAA Division III Softball Championship, hosted by Montclair State University at the MSU Softball Stadium.

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Messiah (43-4) wins its third team national championship of the academic year, having previously won the men’s and women’s soccer crowns in the fall, and completed a perfect 8-0 run through the 2009 NCAA regional and championship brackets, despite entering the post-season unranked. It was the ninth team national championship in Messiah school history and its first in a sport other than soccer. The men’s soccer program has won six, with two in women’s soccer.

Head coach Amy Weaver, in her 12th year as head coach of the Falcons, earned her 300th career victory as her squad captured the national championship.

“It feels good to have our own national championship,” Weaver said. “We’ve been motivated by the success of our other teams. We wanted to do the same thing and it was a motivating force for us.”

“The entire team felt we were underestimated [by being unranked] and it motivated us. The entire team was motivated by that and we wanted to prove what we were about and they did.”

Coe, which defeated Gustavus Adolphus College earlier in the day, 4-2, to advance to its first national final, ends the year with a 41-13 record.

Coe head coach Bob Timmons had high praise for the Falcons. “They have a very nice team. [Rhoads] helps a lot because you don’t have to play a lot of defense when she’s out there. [Messiah] made every play that they needed to make and they hit the ball throughout their line-up. We were doing everything we could to get the tying run to second base. We were trying to force [Messiah] to execute, and they did.”

Messiah scored just nine runs in the four games of the championship—the third fewest runs ever scored by a team in the national event and only the third time a team has scored 10 runs or less en route to a crown. Messiah won the national title without the advantage of having an All-America selection on its roster.

“We felt like some of our kids were worthy of being national All-Americans,” Weaver said about winning the title without individual honors, “but we talked about this being a team effort all the way. We couldn’t get here without every single person on the team and we feel we won this because we are a team.”

While Rhoads (28-1) was not an All-American this year, she played that way throughout the tournament, striking out a staggering 53 batters versus five walks in 28.0 innings in four games. She threw 67 of 94 pitches for strikes in the victory, and struck out 12 of the 13 batters swinging, while scattering two singles.

Junior catcher Abby Bergakker (Grand Rapids, MI) belted her fourth homerun of the season in the top of the seventh inning to put the Falcons up 2-0 and threw out two runners attempting to steal. Rhoads, Bergakker, and freshman second baseman Abi Buchler (Fenwick Island, DE) were each selected to the NCAA All-Tournament Team for Messiah.

For the 17th-ranked Kohawks, freshman pitcher Ashlee Simon (Riverside, Iowa), senior pitcher/right fielder Sonja Schwenker (Burlington, Iowa) and junior MacKenzie Lang (Urbandale, Iowa) were tabbed to the All-Tournament Team.

Each team had one hit through three innings. Messiah threatened in the top of the first when sophomore centerfielder Rebekkah Funk (Carlisle, PA), who was 1-for-3, had a one-out bloop double down the left field line and freshman left fielder Jaclyn Merkel (Linthicum, MD) walked, bringing up Rhoads, who had struck out 19 batters while blasting a two-run homer to help the Falcons to a 2-0 win over Coe in a winner’s bracket game 11 on May 17. Simon was able to get Rhodes to fly out to deep center and coerced another pop out to end the inning.

In defeat, Simon (24-6) allowed just three hits and two runs, with five strikeouts and four walks—two intentionally.

Rhoads struck out the side in the bottom of the first inning, extending her streak of consecutive batters retired as strikeouts to 15 in two games against Coe in as many days, before a fly out in the top of the second ended the string. She fanned three batters in the third inning and seven of the first nine outs recorded were K’s.

“We’ve had a lot of good pitchers [in the history of the program],” Weaver noted. “We’ve had some right at the top. But Jess is still the best pitcher I have ever coached.”

The Falcons scored what proved to be the winning run in the fourth inning as Merkel doubled off the top of the left field fence—missing a homerun by two feet. Rhoads was intentionally walked and freshman Tiffany

Stokes (Palmyra, PA) pinch ran, before a sacrifice bunt forced two runners into scoring position. Bergakker was also intentionally walked to load the bases with one out.

Freshman shortstop Lauren Seneca (Bethlehem, PA) put the Falcons in front, 1-0 with a sacrifice fly to right center, scoring Merkel. When the relay throw rolled through the infield, Stokes attempted to score from second. But the loose ball was picked up by Simon and she gunned out Stokes at the plate to end the threat.

Rhoads made the go-ahead run, the winning run. She allowed a walk in the fourth inning before Bergakker threw out the runner stealing and Rhoads retired the Kohawks 1-2-3 in the fifth inning, striking out two. Coe received a two-out single from senior shortstop Ashley Leonard (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) in the sixth inning before Rhoads struck out her second batter of the inning and 12th of the game.

Leading off the seventh, Bergakker added insurance for the Falcons when she cranked a 2-2 pitch over the left center field fence for a 2-0 lead.

“I knew that was it—we could easily make three outs after that,” Rhoads said of the significance of the Bergakker homerun. “If we make one little mistake and a runner scores we still have a little bit of room.”

“Jess was definitely at the top of her game all tournament long,” said Bergakker. “From seeing her all season long, this is definitely the best she’s thrown, this weekend.”

In the bottom of the seventh, Rhoads fanned her 13th batter for the opening out. Junior first baseman Nicole Adams (Carlisle, PA) navigated the lip of the dugout on a foul fly to grab the second out. Coe senior right fielder Danielle Leavens (Charles City, Iowa) attempted to bunt the first pitch she saw to keep her team alive but junior third baseman Lindsay Hall (Fairfax, VA) made a sprawling catch in front of the pitcher’s mound to clinch the national championship while setting off a jubilant celebration.