Kristin Ortman is entering her 10th season with the Inferno softball program and eighth as head coach. The winningest coach in program history, Ortman captured her 100th career coaching victory on Sunday, April 3, 2016, with a 3-0 shutout victory over Benedictine University.
Ortman led the program to its most successful season in 2015, as the Inferno set a school record for wins for the third time in four years with a 20-20 record, the second .500-season in school history. Alverno finished in eighth place with a 9-13 record in Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference play, just shy of qualifying for the conference tournament. The squad had the best ERA in school history at 2.82.
The 2013 team that went 18-18 scored a school record 234 runs, and the 6.5 runs per game average ranked 30th among all 402 NCAA Division III teams. For the fourth-straight season, the team also broke the school's home run record with 24, nine more than the 15 set in 2012.
In her first season as head coach, she nearly doubled the team's number of victories from the prior season, compiling a 13-27 overall record. The 2010 squad went 7-17 in the NACC, setting the school record for conference wins in a season. In 2011, the team matched their 7-17 conference record, while setting a number of team and individual school records, including 13 home runs and 126 walks.
In college, Ortman was a standout Division I pitcher at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay where she garnered First Team All-Horizon League honors during her senior season. During that season in which the Phoenix won the conference title and a trip to the NCAA Division I Championship Tournament, Ortman boasted a 2.12 earned run average, good for third-best in the league, with 80 strikeouts and a 9-5 season record in the circle. She also racked up Second Team All-Conference recognition in 2003 and 2004, retiring a career-high 105 batters in 2004.
The New Berlin, Wis., native was also part of a successful program at Eisenhower High School earning trips to the state tournament her junior and senior years. She set the Division I State record for strikeouts in a state tournament game with 16 against Verona Area High School in 2001.
Prior to coaching at Alverno, Ortman served as head freshman coach at Waukesha West High School in 2007.
She graduated from UW-Green Bay in 2005 with a bachelor's degree in business administration and resides in Waukesha with her husband Phil.
