CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Prior to the first pitch of Sunday's game at Frost Stadium against Furman, the Chattanooga Lady Mocs softball team honored three seniors - Michelle Fuzzard (Huntington Beach, Calif.), Vivian Morimoto (Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Jessica Traxler (Chino Hills, Calif.). A video of the ceremony can be watched
above, while a photo gallery can be viewed below.
Senior Script
Vivian Morimoto
Morimoto is a two-year member of the Lady Mocs after
transferring from Miami-Dade, where the two-time NFCA All-American won a NJCCAA
DI National Championship. Vivian has become an everyday threat in the Lady Mocs
lineup after hitting a game-tying seventh-inning homer against South Alabama
last season and ended up pacing the team in batting average. She has brought
the team a lot of character through her uplifting personality. The Sao Paulo, Brazil,
native has played in ninety-eight contests as a catcher and designated player
and has driven home 80 runs and blasted 18 homers. She is going to finish her
career in the school's top ten in slugging, on-base and fielding percentage and
batting average. Last season, she received recognition on the All-SoCon First Team
and NFCA South Region Second Team. As a student, she is going to graduate in May
with a degree in sociology and a minor psychology.
Jessica Traxler
Traxler has been a consistent presence at shortstop over her
Lady Mocs career, starting in one-hundred-ninety-three games as Chattanooga has
captured three southern conference regular season titles. Jessica has made
two-hundred-eighty-three putouts and ranks seventh in school history with 337 assists.
The Chino Hills, California, native has made progress each season at the plate,
batting over 300 over the past two seasons. She has registered 31 multi-hit and
21 multi-RBI games. The senior has shown power, while ranking tenth on the Lady
Mocs home run chart with eighteen and recently blasted three in a week on the
way to SoCon player of the week honors. Another memorable moment in her career
came a year ago when she connected on a grand slam at Western Carolina. In the
classroom, she is scheduled to graduate in December 2012 with a pre-medical
degree.
Michelle Fuzzard
Our final senior has been a force for the Lady Mocs at the
plate and in the circle over the past five seasons starting in two-hundred-thirty-three
games. Fuzzard has etched her name into the Chattanooga and southern conference
record books. Michelle currently holds the SoCon career record with
two-hundred-eleven breaking the mark with a nine-RBI performance at Appalachian
State. She additionally is the conference's single-season RBI leader with
seventy-five last season. She will finish her career in the Lady Mocs top five
in ten offensive categories. She has done all of this after overcoming a knee
injury that forced her to redshirt in two-thousand-ten. The Lowe's Senior CLASS
candidate rebounded the following season on her way to southern conference
player of the year honors.
The three-time SoCon first team honoree has anchored the
number three slot in the Lady Mocs lineup and has been apart of two prolific
offensive teams the past two seasons. She was the first player in league
history to receive first and second teams honors in the same season, 2009.
In the circle, the former freshman of the year has tallied 45
victories including a team-leading 18 wins last season as she was recognized by
the NFCA on the south region second team as a pitcher and DP. Fuzzard has
struck out over 300 batters in 430 innings of work during her career.
The August 2011 graduate in Criminal Justice is currently
working towards her master's degree in the same field. She has appeared on the
dean's list eight times in her academic career.
