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Marie McCarthy-Foster
Head Softball Coach
Western Michigan University ‘03
mamccart@dwu.edu
605-995-2178

Marie McCarthy-Foster enters her fourth season as the head softball coach at Dakota Wesleyan University with a young squad and all the pieces in place to build a successful program.

In 2010, McCarthy-Foster’s squad finished 13-28, a three-win improvement from the 2009 season. The Tigers were 8-16 in the Great Plains Athletic Conference. Highlights for the 2010 squad included a sweep of Sterling College to start the season in Wichita, Kan., and conference sweeps of the University of Sioux Falls and Mount Marty College. The Tigers also picked up a 6-5, 10-inning win against Doane College and beat Northwestern College 16-7 in six innings.

McCarthy-Foster led four Tigers to All-GPAC honors in 2010. All four earned honorable mention status. Her team set three school records. It recorded 50 doubles, a fielding percentage of .945 and a stolen base percentage of .837. Several individual records also fell. Nicole Haley set a record for hits in a season with 46, and Tiffany Bonifacio set a record with 11 sacrifices.

Overall, McCarthy-Foster has a 36-74 record in three seasons at Dakota Wesleyan. She currently has the second-most wins in school history and trails all-time leader Beth Conroy (1997-99) by just two victories. In her three seasons leading the Tigers, McCarthy-Foster has coached 13 All-GPAC selections and two NAIA Scholar-Athletes, as well as two NFCA All-America Scholar Athletes. Under her direction, DWU has broken or tied 11 school records, including season batting average (.279), stolen base percentage (.837), fielding percentage (.945), doubles (50), and the school single-game marks for hits (19) and runs (18).

Before becoming the 13th softball coach in DWU history, McCarthy-Foster served as the recruiting coordinator at Iowa Central Community College and helped the team to a 52-13 overall record and a league championship in 2007. The 2007 team finished fifth in the NJCAA National Softball Poll.

The Lansing, Mich., native was a three-year letterwinner in softball at NCAA Division I Western Michigan University. She helped lead the team to the 2003 Mid-American Conference Tournament Championship and was named to the All-Tournament Team.

She is married to Jason Foster, and they live in Mitchell.

Darwin Tolzin
Assistant Softball Coach

Darwin Tolzin is entering his fourth year as an assistant softball coach at Dakota Wesleyan University. Tolzin came on board with Marie McCarthy-Foster before the 2008 season and currently serves as the Tigers’ pitching coach.

Tolzin brings almost three decades of playing experience to Dakota Wesleyan University, including several national ASA and ISC tournaments. Tolzin coached at the high school level in California from the early 1980s through 1998. In 1999, he was selected as the head softball coach at Moorpark Junior College, where he coached for one season.

Tolzin relocated to South Dakota in 2000 and served as a volunteer assistant and pitching coach at SDSU. In 2006, Tolzin was selected as the head coach of a club team in the Netherlands. He has also assisted with the Holland National Team.