Ritter Repeats As Softball All-America Award Winner
UW-Oshkosh junior first baseman Hannah Ritter was announced as a repeat selection to the NCAA Division III All-America Third Team by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association.
Ritter becomes the second UW-Oshkosh softball player to receive more than one NFCA All-America accolade, joining former Titan outfielder Whitney Tornow (2009, 2010). Ritter was a Third Team All-American at catcher a year ago.
Ritter's remarkable 2022 season featured a .500 batting average that tied the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference record and a league-leading .554 on-base percentage. Ritter, an All-WIAC First Team selection the past two seasons, currently ranks 15th in batting average across all three NCAA divisions this season while her .477 career batting average through three years is 14th among active NCAA players regardless of division.
After setting the school record with 67 hits last year, Ritter collected 58 hits this season in just 36 games as UW-Oshkosh had eight contests canceled due to weather. Ritter also produced 30 runs scored, nine doubles, one home run, 29 runs batted in, 14 walks, 70 total bases, a .603 slugging percentage and a .995 fielding percentage.
Ritter paced the WIAC's top offense in not only batting average and on-base percentage but doubles, walks, total bases and slugging percentage as well. Ritter was also by far the toughest player to strike out in the WIAC, going down on strikes once every 23.2 at-bats, on the way to concluding the year ranked second in the conference in hits, seventh in walks, and eight in both runs scored and RBIs.
Ritter, who was named to the initial NFCA watchlist for the 2022 Division III Player of the Year and Pitcher of the Year awards, was chosen as the NFCA Division III Player of the Week for games played April 4-10, when she led the Titans to eight straight victories by going a combined 17-for-23 at the plate with 13 runs scored, five doubles, 10 RBIs and six walks.
Ritter had multiple hits in 20 of UW-Oshkosh's 36 games on the year, going 3-for-3 on five occasions and 4-for-4 during the first game of a doubleheader against UW-La Crosse on April 19. Ritter, who did not strike out during a 16-game span from March 23 through April 30, was a combined 4-for-4 in a doubleheader versus UW-Stevens Point on April 27 with a home run and three walks.
Ritter compiled a 17-game hitting streak – the third-longest in program history – from May 23, 2021 to March 25, 2022, and reached base safely in each of UW-Oshkosh's 64 games between March 26, 2021, and May 2, 2022.
Ritter was a major factor in helping UW-Oshkosh finish the season with a 26-10 record while leading the conference as a team in scoring, batting average, hits, on-base percentage and fielding percentage. The Titans, who suffered their fewest losses since 1987, went on a 10-game winning streak – tied for fifth longest in program history – from April 5-15 and won at least 20 games for the WIAC record-tying 18th consecutive full season.
The 2022 NFCA All-America Team featured 18 players on each of three teams. Ritter was one of five first basemen to be honored as Brooke Matyasovsky from Eastern Connecticut State University and Kaitlyn Hasty from Christopher Newport University (Va.) were named to the First Team, Ellie Jones from Belhaven University (Miss.) was selected to the Second Team, and Ritter, Devin Waddell from Pomona-Pitzer Colleges (Calif.) and Morgan Frye from Berry College (Ga.) were voted to the Third Team.
UW-Oshkosh, which reached the semifinals of the WIAC Tournament, was the only league team to be ranked in the NFCA top 25 this season, ascending as high as 11th in the country on April 19.