Melissa Tejeda and Kristin Roberts sign with the Lady Gyrenes softball team at Archbishop McCarthy High School.

Three student athletes from the greater Fort Lauderdale area have joined the first recruiting class for Ave Maria University's women's softball team.

Janet Holtfreter of Deerfield Beach, a pitcher at Cardinal Gibbons High School, has signed with the Lady Gyrenes. As a senior, Holtfreter was 10-7 with a 3.11 earned run average during the regular season, but her best performance came in the final game she pitched in her high school career: a no-hitter with 10 strikeouts in a 1-0 win against Fort Lauderdale High School in a 4A district playoff game.

Holtfreter joins Kristin Roberts of Davie and Melissa Tejeda of Miramar, both starters at Archbishop McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches, to sign with AMU. An infielder who played mostly at third base, Roberts hit .472 for the Mavericks in 25 games with 24 runs batted in. Tejeda, an outfielder who anchored center field at Archbishop McCarthy, batted .386 and stole a team-leading 21 bases.

Women's softball is one of nine NAIA sports teams AMU will field in the 2009-10 academic year.