Hall of Fame
The inaugural class for the Northwestern Oklahoma State Softball team produced one of the best student-athletes to ever walk through the doors as a Ranger, in Falynn Burns as she had an unbelievable career as a member of Ranger Nation.
The Farmington, N.M. native started off her love for the game in high school where she attended the school in Farmington, which is where then Head Coach, Cody Hooper found one of the jewels he was searching for.
Northwestern started up its first ever softball program in 2001 and Burns was one of the first recruits by Hooper and boy was she a good one. In her first season, her stats led her to the Newcomer of the Year honor for the Red River Athletic Conference (RRAC).
She led the team in 11 categories on both offense and defense combined, including most putouts (398), Batting Avg. (.331), Slugging Pct. (.423), On Base Pct. (.387), Runs Scored (26), Hits (47), RBI’s (24), Doubles (3), Triples (2), HR’s (2), and Total Bases (60).
During her sophomore season, Burns stepped up her game in almost every category, eclipsing her batting average and raising it to .355. She took down her personal bests in Slugging Pct., On Base Pct., Runs Scored, Hits, RBI’s, Doubles, Triples, and HR’s.
Her stellar play once again earned her the honor of First Team All-RRAC, selected by the coaches around the league. Too bad for them, but lucky for the Rangers, she had two more seasons to torture opposing teams with her offense and defense.
For the third straight season, Burns was a First Team All-RRAC selection, in large part due to her offensive prowess, where she boosted numbers again in a few areas.
Year three saw improvement in a few different areas, mainly in the offensive categories, namely doubles as she increased from her second year by three and tripled her freshman season total. Burns only hit two homers in her first season, and she saw that number triple as well in her quality junior season as a Ranger.
Coach Cody Hooper couldn’t have been more excited about the team’s 2004 season, where they saw significant improvement, and Falynn also bettered herself even more in her final season on the Northwestern Softball team.
During Burns’ final year, she had perhaps her very best season of her career where she recorded her highest batting avg. at .358, the most runs (32), hits (63), 2B’s (15), and HR’s (7).
All of her accomplishments throughout her senior campaign led to her unprecedented fourth-straight First Team All-Conference selection and also her first All-Region honor, the first in Northwestern Softball history.
Burns is the most decorated Softball player to step foot on campus and it shows in the record books, as she’s first All-Time in 10 different categories as a four-year player/starter.
She’s one of the few players in Northwestern history to be able to accomplish the feat of not only playing all four years, but still remaining at the top of the leaderboard in the All-Time statistics in just about all categories.
While attaining her degree and completing it in 2011, Burns was an assistant on the 2011 Softball team, coaching under Coach Hooper.
One of her fondest memories as a Ranger however is the fact that she was part of the inaugural team at Northwestern.
Falynn is now a 5th grade teacher at McKinley Elementary School in her hometown of Farmington where she lives with her daughter, Scarlett.
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