NATCHITOCHES – First-year Northwestern State softball head coach Jenny Fuller completed her coaching staff on Friday with the announcement of three new members.
 
Brad Fuller, husband of Jenny, joins the staff as the Demons' associate head coach while Paxtyn Hayes, a former player for the Fullers at Pittsburg State, and Nicky Dawson, a Baylor softball alum like Jenny, will be serve as assistants.
 
Brad is a nine-year coaching veteran that has worked hand-in-hand with Jenny since their time at Cardinal Stritch, an NAIA school in Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
In two seasons there, four at Northern State in Aberdeen, S.D. and the most recent three seasons at Pittsburg State, Brad has helped develop four all-Americans, seven all-region and more than 20 all-conference players.
 
"Northwestern State is lucky to have a coach of Brad's caliber join the team," Jenny said. "His accomplishments speak for themselves and he brings a wealth of knowledge he can apply to all aspects of the game."
 
An astute offensive mind, Fuller has seen his teams have success at the plate from the very beginning of his career.
 
In his second season at Cardinal Stritch, the Wolves ranked in the top 15 in all of NAIA in batting average, hitting at a .339 clip, and in hits per game at nearly 10 per contest. Three seasons later at Northern State, those Wolves increased both their slugging and on-base percentages by more than 60 points in the NCAA rankings by the end of the 2020 season.
 
In his four years at Northern, Brad helped guide Kennady Thompson to both single-season and career home run records and set new team records for hits and home runs during his time.
 
In his first season at Pittsburg State in 2022, the Gorillas saw a 55-point increase in their team batting average and scored nearly 100 more runs from the previous year. They also saw a more than 100-point increase in slugging with 50 more home runs and 96 more extra-base hits. In Fuller's first season, the Gorillas had more doubles (103) than it did total extra-base hits (84) the previous season.
 
Fuller's work at the plate helped produce some of the best offensive numbers in the country during the record-setting 2024 season for the Gorillas.
 
The PSU bats finished seventh in nation with 579 total hits, with the 10^th highest team batting average in the country at .348. They were also ranked 15^th in the country in runs scored, crossing the plate 394 times on the year for an average of 6.4 runs per game.
 
They garnered a first-team all-American, three third-team all-Americans, the Central Region Player of the Year, two first-team all-region and one second-team all-region selections along with four first-team all-conference honors during the 2024 season.
 
The Gorillas finished the 2024 season winners of a conference title, hosting an NCAA Regional, ranked No. 14 in the country and broke 10 different team records, including wins (53), consecutive wins (22), conference wins (23), runs (394), RBI (346) and stolen bases (104).
 
Brad has also been instrumental in his player's success off the field helping the maintain cumulative team GPAs of 3.5 in all of his previous three coaching jobs. More than 40 players have earned conference academic honor roll honors with multiple academic all-conference winners and academic all-American honors.
 
A key part of the Gorillas' success during not only the 2024 season but the two years prior with the Fullers, was the production of new Demon assistant coach Paxtyn Hayes in the middle of the lineup.
 
The Greenwood, Ark., native finished a historic career at Pittsburg State in 2024 earning all-American, all-region and all-conference status. She ranks in the top 10 in Gorilla softball history in career runs scored (131) home runs (40), hits (235), doubles (58) and is the program's all-time leading in RBI with 195. Hayes drove in the fifth most runs ever in the history of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association by the end of her playing career.
 
"Paxtyn is a highly decorated player who played for me at Pitt State," Jenny Fuller said. "She will build meaningful and impactful relationships with players, and help guide them to reach their goals."
 
A career .350 hitter, Hayes earned the first all-American honor of her career in 2024 with a third-team spot at designated player. After first-team all-conference honors in her sophomore season, she earned the honors again as a junior and senior to become the fifth player in PSU history to earn first-team all-conference honors three times.
 
The slugger was also the fifth Gorilla to hit double-digit home runs in three straight seasons, launching 36 across her final three seasons. She amassed slugging percentages of greater than .600 in each of her final three seasons and OPS (on-base plus slugging) totals north of 1.000 during those years and for her career.
 
Also joining the Demon staff beginning with the 2025 season is assistant coach Nicky Dawson, one of the best high school softball players in Louisiana history.
 
The Baton Rouge native and graduate of Parkview Baptist was a five-time all-state selection, six-time all-district and all-metro winner and was twice chosen as the Marucci Louisiana Softball Player of the Year during her prep career with the Eagles.
 
"Nicky played at a high level, and her experience will be a huge asset to our program," Fuller said. "She has an ability to understand data and analytics at an elite level, which is going to help grow our program immensely."
 
Following her senior season in 2016, Dawson was named MaxPreps National Player of the Year, a FloSoftball Top 30 player and a consensus first-team all-American. She batted an eye-popping .658 on the season, scoring 65 runs and swiping 58 total bases, earning her the NFCA's Golden Show award as the nation's top base stealer.
 
Dawson began her collegiate career at LSU where she batted .310 scored 16 runs and stole eight bases on the Tigers' 2017 Women's College World Series team before transferring to Baylor.
 
There she set the Bears' program record for career triples in on her way to earning Second-Team All-Big 12 honors in 2019, First-Team Academic All-Big 12 in 2020 and was a multi-year member of the conference's commissioner's honor roll.
 
During her all-conference season of 2019, Dawson finished second on the team in batting with a .336 average out of the leadoff spot, using her speed to produce a .420 on-base percentage and steal a team-best 12 bases while also leading the team with 87 assists, a .968 fielding percentage. 
 
Injuries during her final two seasons in Waco limited Dawson's playing time but she still finished her collegiate career with more than 150 hits and scoring more than 100 runs while batting .349 with an on-base percentage of .442.