McFadyen Ivy Player of the Year; Seven Earn All-Ivy Honors

HANOVER, N.H. — The Ivy League office revealed its all-conference teams and award winners for softball today, and Dartmouth second baseman Billie McFadyen headlined the announcement as the Ivy League Player of the Year while she and five teammates earned All-Ivy honors.

McFadyen, along with shortstop Kate Farren and outfielder Alaana Panu, were named to the All-Ivy League First Team, with pitcher Brooke Plonka claiming a spot on the second team. Both outfielder Jenna Brown and designated player Emily Lipsett received honorable mention. In addition, third baseman Maria Angelino was selected for the Academic All-Ivy League Softball Team.

McFadyen, a 5-0 senior from Flower Mound, Texas, was relentless at the plate and flawless in the field, finishing the regular season in the top eight in a number of offensive categories, including hits (48, first), triples (4, first), RBIs (25, second), total bases (73, second), batting (.350, third), runs (22, sixth), on-base percentage (.408, sixth), slugging (.533, seventh) and stolen bases (8, eighth). She was also the only middle infielder in the conference to finish the season without an error, spanning 151 chances in the field. Against just the Ivy League, McFadyen was even better, leading the circuit with 29 hits, three triples and a .476 on-base percentage while hitting .403, one of just two players to top .400. She was also the most difficult hitter to strike out in the league and fanned just once in 72 at-bats against Ivy pitchers.

Farren, a 5-7 junior from Murrieta, California, proved to be lethal at the plate in conference play, hitting .348 with a league-best 11 doubles to go with 18 RBIs (second), a .682 slugging percentage (second), 45 total bases (third), three homers (seventh) and 23 hits (seventh). In the field, she had just two errors in league play to help Dartmouth post the best fielding percentage in Ancient Eight games at .973. Overall, Farren finished the year second in the league with 12 doubles, fifth with 24 RBIs and 10th with a .483 slugging percentage while batting .259 with four home runs.

A 5-4 freshman from Los Gatos, California, Panu immediately established herself in the lineup and joined McFadyen as the only players on the team to start all 44 games for the 20-24 Big Green. She concluded the season second on the team with a .268 average with eight doubles, a triple, three home runs, 21 runs scored and 14 RBIs. But over her last 15 games — all against Ivy League teams — Panu hit .396, including a 13-game hitting streak, helping Dartmouth win 11 of those games and 15 of its last 19 contests, plus was named the Ivy League Rookie of the Week on May 2.

The Big Green's lone second-team selection, Plonka was the workhorse of the Ancient Eight in the circle, leading the league with 12 victories, 27 appearances, 25 starts, 13 complete games, five shutouts and 136.0 innings. Opponents hit just .204 against the 5-10 left-hander from Marilla, New York, and her 117 strikeouts were the third most in the conference. She also tossed the eighth no-hitter in program history in a 3-1 win over Brown on April 9. Ivy hitters managed to hit just .173 against Plonka as she went 8-3 in the league and twice was named the Ivy League Pitcher of the Week.

Among the honorable mentions, Brown hit her stride with the start of conference play, hitting .359 over an 18-game span before a hand injury slowed her late in the season. The 5-6 freshman from Atlanta, Georgia, concluded the season with a .241 average with three doubles, a homer, 15 runs and seven RBIs, including a .326 average and .426 on-base percentage in the Ivy League. Lipsett, a 5-6 senior from La Porte, Indiana, was a slap-hitting pest who also hit .241 on the season and scored 14 runs while stealing four bases in as many attempts.

Angelino, a junior from Fort Myers, Florida, earned her spot on the Academic All-Ivy Team with a 3.92 cumulative GPA as a geography major. The Big Green third baseman started 38 of the 44 games and was a steady defensive presence in the field at the hot corner with a .922 fielding percentage. She also came up with some key hits against Ivy League teams, including a two-run double against the regular-season champion, Princeton, that began the scoring in an 8-0 victory to take the series from the Tigers.

Dartmouth finished the season with a 20-24 record and 14-7 mark in the Ivy League to place third, one game behind second-place Harvard and three behind Princeton.

Notes: This is the second consecutive season that the Player of the Year came from Dartmouth (Micah Schroder in 2019) … McFadyen is the fifth Ivy League Player of the Year to come from the Big Green — all in the last seven seasons — joining Morgan McCalmon (2014), Katie McEachern (2015 and '16) and Schroder … the three first-team selections are one shy of the program record of four established in 2018 (Breanna Ethridge, Morgan Martinelli, Schae Nelson and Taylor Ward).

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