Online Registration for Hall of Fame
Every Thursday, FullertonTitans.com will feature a member of the 2015 Cal State Fullerton Athletics Hall of Fame class, the sixth in its history. Today, the focus is on Titans softball legend and Olympic gold-medalist Jenny Topping, who played at Fullerton from 2001-03.
FULLERTON, Calif. – Always striving to be the best, former Cal State Fullerton softball player Jenny Topping made her mark with the Titans as one of the best players to ever take the softball field.
After earning NCAA First Team All-American honors as a freshman at the University of Washington, Topping made the move to Fullerton for her sophomore season and continued to excel on the field. She was named a First-Team All-American in all three seasons as a Titan and finished her career with a .443 batting average in 170 games at Cal State Fullerton. She is one of just two Titans to earn three All-American honors in her Titans career and one of seven with multiple All-American awards.
Topping made 166 starts and belted 33 home runs with Fullerton, including 14 in her sophomore season and first as a Titan. She was named to the All-Big West First Team in all three seasons and earned NFCA All-West Region honors, including first team honors as a sophomore and junior.
Her name is cemented in the Fullerton record books as her career batting average (.443), slugging percentage (.771), on-base percentage (.573) and total walks (137) all rank as the best in Cal State Fullerton history.
Online Registration for Hall of Fame
Her 33 homers rank second on the all-time Fullerton record book and she placed fourth all-time with 128 career RBIs.
In her second season at Fullerton, Topping batted .472, which still stands as the best single-season batting average in Titans history. Her .821 slugging percentage, 59 RBI, 55 runs and 56 walks in 2001 all rank as the best single-season marks in Fullerton history. She also set the single-season record with a .576 on-base percentage in 2003.
In her three years at Fullerton, Topping helped lead the Titans to three straight Big West Conference championships. Individually, the Titans backstop earned Big West Conference Player of the Year honors in all three seasons at Fullerton.
Along with her outstanding career at Fullerton, Topping played with the U.S. National Team nearly every summer of college and eventually earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team. That team went on to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated and outscored opponents 51-1 in the Athens Olympics, going 9-0 with eight consecutive shutouts en route to the gold medal.
That team would go on to be inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2012.
Topping would go on to play professionally in the National Pro Fastpitch League and win a championship with the Akron Racers in 2005. She was also an all-star during that season. She would also go on to play three seasons in Japan for the Toyota Shokki and was selected as a league Top 9 player at the catcher position in 2008.
The sixth class of the Cal State Fullerton Athletics Hall of Fame will be inducted on Oct. 15 at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim with a cocktail hour beginning at 6 p.m.
Individual tickets are $90 with tables of 10 for $800. Online Registration for Hall of Fame.
For more information, contact Marcela Lucero at (657) 278-7016 or malucero@fullerton.edu.
Next Week's Hall of Fame Spotlight: Ted Silva (Baseball)
