2001 championships logoSt. Mary's Team Notes

·         2002 is the Rattlers’ most successful season in terms of wins (53) and winning percentage (84.1%)

·         St. Mary’s advanced to the 2002 championships with two extra-innings victories over A&M Kingsville. In the South Central Regional semi-finals, the Rattlers won with a grand-slam in the bottom of the ninth. In the finale, they won by scoring five runs in the top of the ninth and holding the Javelinas scoreless in the bottom of the ninth.

·         The Rattlers fell one game short of the 2001 National Championships when they lost in the South Central Regional finals to Eastern New Mexico, a team coached by two St. Mary’s alumni, Kathleen and James Rodriguez.

·         Under Jim Zeleznak, the Rattlers made 12 NAIA Tournament appearances in 15 years. In 1986, the Rattlers won the NAIA National Championship, which was held in San Antonio and hosted by the City of San Antonio and St. Mary’s.

·         All three of St. Mary’s head softball coaches are St. Mary’s Alumni. Zeleznak was a former Rattler basketball player. Urbanovsky and Fields are both former Rattler softball players and both were named to NAIA All-American teams.

 ·         St. Mary’s head coach Donna Eckert Fields was a member of the 1986 championship team and a 1987 NAIA All-American. A three-sport athlete at St. Mary’s (volleyball, basketball and softball), Fields is the only female two-sport inductee in the St. Mary’s Athletics Hall of Fame.

·         Graduate Assistant Coach Jessica Flores Peoples was a four-year starter for the Rattler softball team.

·         St. Mary’s most celebrated softball player is Leticia Morales-Bissaro, MVP of the 1986 NAIA Championship. Morales-Bissaro still holds NAIA tournament records for strikeouts (65), appearances (8), complete games (8) and wins (7). In 1999, she was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame and in 2001, she was inducted into the National Hispanic Sports Hall of Fame. She was one of the first-two women athletes inducted into the St. Mary’s Athletics Hall of Fame and is the only Rattler female to have her jersey retired.