Meredith Felts Rowland (2024) - JMU Athletics Hall of Fame

Meredith Felts Rowland

Induction:
2024
Class:
2010

The first JMU softball Hall of Fame inductee, Meredith Felts was a major factor in putting the program on the map, earning Most Outstanding Player and leading the Dukes to their first Colonial Athletic Association Championship in 2009. In the first five years of the program, the Dukes went 126-142, but in Felts' sophomore through senior campaigns JMU went 105-54. The Dukes finished third in the CAA Championship in 2007, runner up in 2008 and captured their first title in 2009, as a Felts one-hit shutout upended a Hofstra squad that had won all seven titles since the league added the sport in 2002. Felts was a three-time All-CAA selection, including First Team honors in 2008 and 2009, and was named to the 2010 Silver Anniversary Team as one of the top 25 players in the CAA's first nine years of competition. She was named Virginia State Pitcher of the Year in 2009 to go along with an All-State selection in 2008 and was a Second Team All-Region pick by the NFCA in 2008. As the softball program rose to national heights in the years following Felts, she still ranks fourth in career wins (61), fourth in strikeouts (581), fourth in complete games (52), fifth in ERA (1.60), fifth in opponent batting average (.198), fifth in starts (84) and sixth in innings pitched (589). Felts went on to become the first JMU softball player to play internationally, was a Division I assistant coach and now spends time as a private instructor.