Former LSU star Bailey Landry has announced her retirement as a player. After her collegiate career, Landry went on to play in the National Pro Fastpitch league for a single season with the Texas Charge, where she was named the NPF Rookie of the Year, before spending a pair of seasons with the Scrap Yard Fastpitch organization. During her collegiate career at LSU, Landry was twice named an all-American and helped lead the Tigers to three Women’s College World Series berths. Landry earned conference honors in three of her four seasons as a Tiger, including all-SEC Freshman honors in 2014 and…
Author: jmcleod
Who is she? Stacie Chambers, a former catcher and home run record holder for the Arizona Wildcats. What is she known for? Chambers is widely considered one of the greatest players in Arizona history. Twice named an all-American, Chambers finished her playing career second all-time with 87 career home runs, a mark that still stands in the top five in NCAA history. Chambers helped lead the Wildcats to three consecutive Women’s College World Series berths and was twice named a first-team all-Region selection. Here’s something interesting… After finishing her career three home runs shy of what was then the all-time…
First-year Maryland head coach Mark Montgomery has hired Mike Larrabee and Chelsea Butler to round out his inaugural coaching staff with the Terrapins. Larrabee most recently was the head coach at Division II Central Washington, where he led that program for five years. While at CWU, Larrabee led the Wildcats to four consecutive conference championships and a pair of Regional berths. During his tenure with the program, Larrabee’s squad set a Great Northwest Atlantic Conference record for most consecutive regular-season titles. A long-time high-level head coach, Larrabee spent four years at Wright State, leading that program to a pair of…
Val Arioto headlines the Team USA Olympic roster / Photo: USA Softball JUSTIN MCLEOD | JWOS PUBLISHER On Sunday morning, Team USA announced the 18-member roster that will compete in the red, white, and blue in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. Fifteen players were named to the active roster, while a trio of athletes were named as Replacement Players for the Games. The active roster includes Monica Abbott (P; Tennessee ’07); Ali Aguilar (IF; Washington ’17); Valerie Arioto (IF; Cal ’12); Ally Carda (P; UCLA ’15); Amanda Chidester (C; Michigan ’12); Rachel Garcia (P; UCLA ’20); Haylie…
Sacramento State and head coach Lori Perez have agreed to a contract extension. Perez previously was on a single-season contract through the year 2020; the five-year extension will run through the 2024 campaign. The 2019 season marked Perez’ sixth as head coach of the Hornets program, a tenure that includes 164 career victories and a conference championship & NCAA tournament berth in 2018. Her team reached the 30-win plateau in back-to-back years in 2018 and ‘19. A Sacramento State ‘lifer,’ Perez played for the Hornets from 1999-2002 and spent nine years on the program’s coaching staff as an assistant before…
As Amanda Fazzari laces up her running shoes, she reflects back to 2016 and the first – and, to date, only – half-marathon she’s ever run. Fazzari, an Illinois Wesleyan program alum and now the head coach at Trinity Christian College, completed that race, but had no plans of repeating the performance. “I thought those that ran [13.1 miles] twice were absolutely insane,” she says, her face set in a thoughtful expression. In October, Fazzari will not only hit the pavement again, she will become one of the very people that she once dubbed as “insane.” She plans to run…
Todd Bradley will be named the head coach at Alabama State, sources confirmed to JWOS over the weekend. Bradley spent the 2019 season as the hitting coach on staff at Fresno State. He helped shepherd the Bulldogs’ offense to a .399 team on-base percentage, a mark that led the Mountain West conference and ranked 18th nationally. A pair of Bradley’s hitters – freshman McKenzie Wilson and senior Rachel Minogue – earned the conference’s Freshman of the Year award and finished the year as the nation’s toughest player to strike out, respectively. Prior to his single-season stint at Fresno State, Bradley…
With a win over China in the final game of the Asia/Oceania Olympic Qualifier, the Australian national team became the 6th and final softball program to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games. The Aussies finished the Qualifier with an undefeated record, capping off the week’s performance with a hearty 9-3 victory over China. The Aussies rode their potent offensive attack to the win, while pitching ace Kaia Parnaby turned in a gutsy performance in the circle to punch her team’s ticket to the Olympic Games. In qualifying for Tokyo, the Australians will become the fourth national team to appear in…
The day is drawing nearer: Nearly thirty invited athletes will report to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on October 1st for a week-long tryout camp that will ultimately lead to the formation of the United States Olympic softball roster for the 2020 Games in Tokyo, Japan. After a gold medal victory in the Pan American Games, the US National Team posed with their coaching staff and gold medals. Each athlete was dressed similarly in a blue warm-up outfit; some posed with their newly-earned hardware, while others simply smiled for the camera. In the back row of the photo, however, stood three athletes,…
The final Olympic softball qualifier is set to kick off in Shanghai, China on September 24th. Six teams from the continent of Asia and two teams from Oceania will compete for the sixth and final berth in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Three teams in the top ten in the 2018 WBSC international rankings are competing in Shanghai. Sixth-ranked Chinese Taipei is the highest-ranked team in the field, followed closely by #7 Australia and #8 China. Other participating teams in the qualifier include #11 New Zealand; #13 Philippines; #23 South Korea; #37 Indonesia; and #42 Hong Kong. A pair of countries that…