A highly respected coach with championship experience at the University of Connecticut and in the Ivy League, Christie Novatin was named the University of Pennsylvania’s head softball coach in June 2023.
 
Novatin arrived in University City following four years as the Associate Head Coach at UConn, where she helped lead the Huskies to back-to-back regular-season Big East championships for the first time since 1997.
 
Novatin began at UConn in 2019, and with head coach Laura Valentino turned around a program that had 10 straight losing seasons into one of the top programs in the region. The Huskies compiled a 110-58 record during her last four seasons, including an impressive 51-18 mark in the Big East. In 2022 and 2023, UConn was 72-33 (39-9 Big East) and won the Big East regular-season titles both seasons.
 
As the team’s hitting coach, Novatin’s offense broke team records for most runs scored, RBI, stolen bases and walks during her four years. In 2023, UConn was seventh nationally in stolen bases per game and 17th in on-base percentage, and ranked in the top 50 in batting average and doubles per game. She recruited and developed Big East Freshman of the Year Grace Jenkins and coached players who set program marks in RBI, doubles, walks, total bases, and stolen bases.
 
Off the field, Novatin was responsible for team travel, equipment, and alumnae engagement while working with the head coach on fundraising for a new softball stadium.
 
Prior to her time at Connecticut, Novatin was an assistant coach at Princeton where she helped lead the Tigers to a pair of Ivy League championships. During her four years, she increased the team’s batting average and slugging percentage. She served as the acting head coach during the fall of 2017, leading all areas of the program.
 
Novatin also spent two seasons at UAlbany, helping the Great Danes to the 2014 America East championship, and was an assistant at Rider (2012-13) and Georgian Court (2010-12).
 
The Farmingdale, N.J. native was a four-year letter winner at Hofstra where her teams won four CAA regular-season titles, three CAA Tournament titles, and made three NCAA Regionals under Hall of Fame head coach Bill Edwards. She earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science from Hofstra in 2010.

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Kristin Hallam joined head coach Christie Novatin’s staff as an assistant coach in July 2023.
 
Prior to her arrival in University City, Hallam spent the 2023 season with the University of Missouri as a graduate assistant coach under Larissa Anderson. The Tigers went 35-26 that season, making the NCAA Championship and beating California in their first game at the Norman Regional before being eliminated. While at Missouri, Hallam also got her Med in Educational Leadership and Administration.
 
Like Novatin, Hallam played her college ball at Hofstra University where she an impressive career with the Pride. A 2021 graduate, Hallam played 184 games over her four-year career, starting each of them. She was a career .355 hitter with 222 hits. Hallam finished her career as the Hofstra all-time stolen base leader with 83. She ranks among the top ten in program history in batting average, hits, runs, and stolen bases.
 
Hallam was the Colonial Athletic Association’s nominee for NCAA Woman of the Year in 2021, following her senior season. She completed her graduate degree in sport science with a 4.0 GPA after completing her undergraduate degree with a 3.91 GPA as an exercise science major. Hallam also was a 2021 Senior CLASS Award Candidate while serving as Hofstra’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee President.

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Lauryn Brooks was added to the softball staff for the 2023 season.

Brooks is currently a PennPREP student working in a bioengineering lab in the McKay Department of Orthopedic Research. Her research interest is Mechanisms of Skeletal Muscle Repair in Diseased or Injured Tissues. 

As a student-athlete, Brooks was a four-year member of the softball team at Hampton University in Hampton, Va. where she received her BS in Biochemistry. While at Hampton she was named to the Big South Presidential Honor Roll and All-Academic Team as well as earning Dean’s List all four years. In the spring of 2022, she earned the 2022 Hampton University President’s Cup Award, the award is the high Academic award at the university.
 
On the diamond, during her senior year, she recorded 20 hits, scored 12 runs, six RBI, and three stolen bases. She recorded a career-high three hits in a February game against Penn. In the outfield, she posted a .959 fielding percentage.
 
She has previously worked with the Softball Factory, a division of Baseball Factory, that provides softball players nationwide with expert instruction, college planning and guidance.

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