TRENDING NOW: NCAA TRANSFER TRACKER / COLLEGE COACHING TRACKER
Sure, the New England Patriots have won six Super Bowl rings in the new millennium. And sure, the Boston Red Sox have won three additional World Series after breaking the Curse of the Bambino with their legendary title in 2004. But if you want to talk about a real dynasty in the making, look no further than the Boston University softball diamond.
In 2015, BU’s softball program finished the year ten games below .500 and with just 17 wins to their credit. That summer, the Terriers made a coaching change and ultimately hired an assistant coach from just up the road at Harvard as their new program leader.
That coach was Ashley Waters, and her hiring would change the entire trajectory of the Boston U program.
Waters led the Terriers to 28 wins in her first season at the helm, then 25 victories in year #2. After missing the Patriot League tournament with a second-to-last league finish in 2015, the Terriers not only made the tournament in Waters’ first year, but won the entire affair and qualified for the NCAA tournament.
For the first two years of Waters’ tenure, the Terriers were an improving and still-successful team in their own right. But in 2018, a true freshman with a wicked right arm arrived in Boston.
A native of Torrington, Connecticut, Ali Dubois was a 5’5” engineering major who also happened to possess a potent set of skills in the pitching circle. As a high school junior in Torrington, Dubois had assembled a 0.86 ERA and earned all-state honors.
Dubois’ freshman season, the 2018 campaign, was an incredibly successful one for her team. The Terriers beat a pair of Power Five teams on opening weekend of the season, then beat #1-overall Oklahoma in a tournament in Las Cruces, New Mexico. BU won every conference series that year, three of them in sweeping fashion. The team stampeded through the Patriot League tournament with a 3-0 record and again qualified to participate in the NCAA regionals.
Waters earned Patriot League Coach of the Year honors in 2018, while Dubois became the first-ever Terrier to earn simultaneous Pitcher and Rookie of the Year awards from the conference. As terrific of a season as that one was, the Terriers were on a fast-progressing upward trend.
Yet another berth in the NCAA tournament was in store in 2019, following a regular season that earned 37 wins overall, including a perfect 18-0 showing in front of the home crowd. Dubois earned her second consecutive Patriot League Pitcher of the Year award and owned a 1.37 ERA.
After the abrupt cancellation of the 2020 season, Waters and her staff championed the NCAA’s extended eligibility waiver for players who had the rug pulled out from under them in 2020. Most importantly, it gave BU the chance to see Dubois get four full years with an opportunity to cement her legacy as an all-time great.
Then the 2021 season came. While an abbreviated out-of-conference schedule didn’t give the Terriers the opportunity for an earth-shaking upset this season, the team has performed spectacularly in the games that they have played.
Posting a regular-season record of 33-2, Waters, Dubois, and the Terriers are headed to the Patriot League tournament as the overwhelming favorites to take home yet another crown. Dubois is as good as ever in the circle, currently sporting an undefeated 22-0 record with 124 strikeouts and a 0.69 ERA to her credit.
Regardless of how the conference and NCAA postseasons fare for Boston U over the next few weeks, the Terriers have firmly established themselves as one of the top teams at the mid-major level and are reaping the rewards of the dynasty that Waters has built and that Dubois has vaulted ever-higher.
