Monday, June 21, 2004

SOFTBALL COACH JOHN BYRNE & STAFF NAMED NFCA EAST REGION
COACHING STAFF OF THE YEAR FOR SECOND CONSECUTIVE SEASON

STARKVILLE, MS --- Moravian College head softball coach John Byrne and his staff of assistant coaches Scot Dapp, Scott Hoke, Ron Cardinal, Becky Stroup and Erin Kelly have been named the 2004 National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division III East Region Coaching Staff of the Year announced Thursday by the NFCA. This is the second straight season that the Greyhound coaching staff has been honored as the East Region Coaching Staff of the Year.

Head coach John Tschida and his staff from national champion the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) was named the Speedline/NFCA Division III National Coaching Staff of the Year as well as the Midwest Region Coaching Staff of the Year. All eight Regional Coach Staffs of the Year, which can be found at www.nfca.org, will be honored at the 2004 NFCA Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada this December.

Byrne and the rest of the staff led Moravian to a 40-6 record this season, the squad’s fifth consecutive Commonwealth Conference Championship and the program’s seventh straight NCAA Division III Tournament berth. The Greyhounds won their first-ever NCAA Regional Championship and advanced to the NCAA Division III World Series were the team finished the year as the national runner-up to St. Thomas.

Moravian entered the 2004 season with six seniors on the roster and the goal for Byrne, his staff as the players to make the World Series for the first time in school history.

In his first 11 seasons as head coach of Moravian, Byrne has guided the Greyhounds to a 333-117 record, the school’s first seven NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament berths, the first trip to the NCAA Division III World Series with a runner-up finish, five Middle Atlantic Conference playoff appearances, four Commonwealth Conference playoff berths and six Commonwealth Conference Championships. Byrne, who earned his 300th career victory this season with an 11-3 victory versus Methodist (NC) College at the 2004 NFCA Leadoff Classic in LaGrange, Georgia, which the Greyhounds won, was named Commonwealth Conference Coach of the Year in 2000, 2002 and 2004.

Byrne’s teams have won at least 23 games in each of his 11 seasons including a 23-8 mark during his debut season in 1994, and six of those 11 teams have topped the 30-win plateau including the 2004 squad, which was 40-6, a school record for victories by any sport. Byrne has also guided the Greyhounds to the postseason in each of the last ten years with MAC playoff berths in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 2000; Commonwealth Conference tournament appearances in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004 and NCAA Division III National Championship Tournament berths in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Dapp, Moravian’s head football coach, has been on Byrne’s staff in each of his 11 seasons while Cardinal, Moravian’s CHAMPS/Life Skills Coordinator and an assistant football coach, and Hoke have each coached for seven years. Stroup, a former NFCA All-Region pitcher for Moravian, finished her fourth season with the staff while Kelly, a four-year letterwinner at the University of Delaware, completed her second year on the Greyhound staff.