Softball | 12/17/2015 9:48:00 AM

Montclair, NJ – Montclair State University head softball coach Anita Kubicka received the highest honor a coach can achieve as the long-time mentor was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame Class of 2015. The ceremony took place at the 2015 NFCA National Convention in Atlanta, GA on December 4.

Kubicka was inducted along with Joe Evans of Texas A&M University and Auburn University's Clint Meyers. Her selection marks the third different Hall of Fame enshrinement for the Red Hawk head coach, who was inducted into the Newark Athletic Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Montclair State Athletic Hall of Fame in October 2014.. She is 10th Division III head coach to be inducted into the NFCA Hall of Fame.

Entering her 26th season at the Red Hawk helm in 2016, Kubicka has fashioned an impressive coaching resume – 809 victories, the most in MSU athletic history, and a .742 winning percentage – both which rank in the Top 10 among active coaches in Division III.

Sixteen times her teams have won 30-plus games, including 12 of the last 16 campaigns, and she has led the Red Hawks to 14 NCAA Tournaments overall. In those 14 appearances are five trips to the national championship tournament where in 1997 Montclair finished as the runner-up in addition to third-place finishes in 1992 and 2012. Montclair State has also won seven ECAC championships under Kubicka's watch and she has earned several NJAC and NFCA Regional Coach of the Year honors.

From 2011-2014, few teams have enjoyed the success that Kubicka's teams have achieved. During that span the Red Hawks captured 82 percent of their games posting a 159-34 record that included three straight 40-win campaigns. Montclair State won the NJAC championship in 2013 and reached the NCAA Division III Softball Championship in 2012, 2013 and 2014 becoming the first program to reach the national finals three straight years since baseball had a run of five consecutive World Series appearances in the 1980s. Montclair set the single-season mark for wins twice (44 in 2012 and 46 in 2013) and ranked in the Top 10 of NFCA national poll, including several weeks at No. 1 during the 2013 season.

During the 2007 and 2008 seasons, no team in the New Jersey Athletic Conference was better than Kubicka's Red Hawks which registered an impressive 34-2 record during that time. In 2008 MSU put together its best conference season in program history. Montclair did not lose a single league game during the regular season posting an 18-0 mark making it just the second NJAC squad in league annals to accomplish that feat. In addition to its second straight regular-season crown, Montclair also captured the NJAC Tournament winning twice on the final day to earn its first conference championship since 1997 and its third overall.

Montclair State completed 2008 with a 43-6 record, setting the school record for victories at the time and Kubicka and her staff were rewarded with Coaching Staff of the Year honors from both the NJAC and the NFCA. Kubicka was also honored by the New Jersey Sportswriters Association in January of 2009. The following year she was presented with one of the two Honor Awards at the New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (NJAIAW) National Girls and Women in Sport Day Celebration.

Kubicka came to Montclair State in 1991 and a year later had the Red Hawks in the NCAA Division III Softball Championship as Montclair made a "Cinderella" run to a third-place showing. Earning the final berth into the 1992 Regional Tournament, Montclair lost its first game, but went on to win the next four including three on the final day to earn a trip to Pella, Iowa. Four years later, MSU returned to the national final and reached the championship game in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The Red Hawks came within a run of claiming the national title before falling to Simpson College, 2-1.

Kubicka became the all-time winningest coach during the 1997 season surpassing Willie Rucker for the top spot with her 210th victory, a 3-2 triumph against Rowan in the NCAA Regional Tournament. She joins recently retired baseball coach Norm Schoenig and basketball coach Ollie Gelston as the only Montclair State coaches to win 300 contests and collected her 500th victory in April 2006 as MSU topped Richard Stockton, 4-3. Her 600^th victory came four years later in 2010 and she reached the 700-win mark in 2012 when Montclair blanked Ramapo 5-0 in the opening round of the NJAC Softball Championship.

But Kubicka's legacy in Montclair State softball history goes beyond the records and accolades on the field.

She played a major role in the construction of the MSU Softball that gave her team a first-class facility that matched it success on the field. The stadium opened in 2004 to raved reviews and is one of the premier softball-only complexes in the East Region. The stadium served as the home to the NY/NJ Juggernaut of the National Pro Fastpitch in 2004 and in May 2009 was the site for the NCAA Division III Softball Championship. It marked the first time that Montclair hosted a national championship tournament and it was the first appearance in the East by the tournament in 20 years.

Among the list of 56 players to be named All-American at MSU, Kubicka had coached 38 of them – 19 First-Team selections, including 1992 NCAA Division III Player of the Year Lois Fyfe. Kubicka's teams have also excelled in the classroom raking among the top academic athletic teams at Montclair State and place several players each year on the NJAC's All-Academic Team. In 2008, Jackie Ferranti became the first female and the fifth student-athlete in school history to be named to the Capital One Academic All-America Team with pitcher ALEX HILL earning three straight honors from 2012-14 including the first MSU female to selected to the First Team in 2013.

Kubicka, a 1984 graduate of Trenton State, is well acquainted with winning traditions. During her career, she played on the Lions' 1983 National Championship squad, the first for the school after having finished runner-up in both its 1982 and 1984 NCAA Division III Softball Championship campaigns. Following her graduation from Trenton State, the first team All-American earned her Master's in Science in Sports Management from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, while serving as an assistant softball coach. During those four years, UMass earned two Atlantic 10 Championships and in 1986 garnered a bid to the NCAA Tournament.