Former Kent State pitcher Ronnie Ladines is joining the coaching staff at Utah Valley, sources confirmed to JWOS on Friday. Ladines spent the 2018 and 2019 seasons as a graduate assistant on staff at Akron. During her playing career at Kent State that stretched from 2014-17, Ladines established herself as the ace of the Golden Flashes’ pitching staff, earning a pair of all-conference first-team honors. She was named an all-region selection in 2016 and ’17, including earning first-team all-region honors in 2017, her senior year. The 2017 conference tournament MVP, Ladines’ names appears throughout the Kent State career record books. She…
Author: jmcleod
The Canadian National Team has maintained an incredible consistency throughout the majority of their roster during softball’s Olympic drought. A number of longtime Canadian stars have donned the maple leaf year-in and year-out – many of them for the better part of a decade – and, in doing so, have made themselves almost synonymous with the sport’s fanbase north of the border. Jen Gilbert is one such name. The former collegiate star for Ball State University rewrote her alma mater’s record book during her career at BSU that stretched from 2011-14. A two-time all-American, Gilbert remains the only player in…
UCLA and head coach Kelly Inouye-Perez have agreed to a contract extension, according to documents reviewed by JWOS as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. Inouye-Perez led the Bruins to the Women’s College World Series championship during the 2019 season, the second such title of her tenure as the program’s head coach. The contract extension will keep Inouye-Perez in Los Angeles through the 2023 season. During the 2019 championship run, the Bruins posted a 56-6 overall record, the second-highest win total of Inouye-Perez’s 13-year tenure as head coach. The program posted a 20-4 mark in PAC-12 play, tying…
Kerry Shaw has been named the head coach for the Kansas City Roos, the school announced earlier in the week. Kansas City, formerly known as Missouri-Kansas City or UMKC, announced an athletics branding change earlier in the summer. Shaw takes the helm at Kansas City after spending a single season as the hitting coach at Texas. He helped lead the Longhorns to forty-six victories on the season and a berth in the Super Regionals, guiding the team’s offense to a single-season program record for doubles. The Longhorns hit .302 as a team, with five players over the .300 mark. Sophomore Janae…
Who is she? Candyce Carter, a former outfielder for the Lamar Cardinals. What is she known for? Carter was on the forefront of helping establish the Lamar program after its return from a years-long hiatus. After beginning her career at San Jacinto College, Carter spent the last two years of her career at Lamar. She earned all-conference honors in each of her two years in the Southland, serving as the Cardinals’ primary center fielder. At her career’s end, Carter’s name sat atop a pair of program records, including batting average and RBIs. Here’s something interesting… Candyce is not the only collegiate athlete in her…
McCall Salmon has rounded out her inaugural staff at Central Michigan after being hired to lead the Chippewas earlier this summer. Brittini Merchant, a CMU program alum, and Sara Driesenga, a Michigan graduate, were announced as assistant coaches for the program last week. Driesenga will serve as the program’s pitching coach, while Merchant will work with the program’s outfielders and both will have a role in hitting instruction. Merchant spent the past three seasons as an assistant coach at Division II Davenport under Salmon, and helped lead that program to a 2017 berth in the NAIA World Series and back-to-back…
Marc Weekly is returning to the University of Tennessee as the volunteer assistant coach for the Lady Vols. Weekly previously spent the better part of a decade in the volunteer role for the program, serving on staff from 2005-13. He was part of a coaching staff that shepherded the Lady Vols to six Women’s College World Series appearances during that time. After leaving Tennessee, Weekly started the softball program at The King’s Academy, a high school in Seymour, Tennessee. During his six-year tenure leading that program, the squad won three state championships and more than two hundred games (207-41 overall).…
Chelsea Bramlett has been named the head coach at Northwest Mississippi Community College, according to a press release from the school on Friday, August 9th. “I am so excited and blessed to have this opportunity to coach at Northwest,” Bramlett said in the school’s release. “I cannot thank the administration enough for what they have done and I am excited for the future of Northwest softball.” Bramlett played at Mississippi State from 2007-10, rewriting the program’s record book during her time as a Bulldog. She actively holds four program career records, including for batting average (.461); hits (359); runs scored…
Former Kentucky great Abbey Cheek has been named an assistant coach at Morehead State. Cheek graduated from Kentucky following the 2019 season, a season during which she was named the SEC Player of the Year. During her stellar senior season, Cheek was a top-10 finalist for the USA Softball National Player of the Year award and set the Kentucky program’s all-time home run record. During the 2019 season, Cheek hit twenty home runs, finishing her career with sixty-one longballs, a total more than a dozen greater than the previous UK program record. She owns four single-season records for the Wildcats…
The National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) announced on Wednesday the 15-team field that will participate in the 2020 NFCA Leadoff Classic. Nine of the participating teams were selected for the NCAA tournament in 2019, while Liberty reached the final round of the National Invitational Softball Championship tournament. The field includes one defending Women’s College World Series participant in Minnesota, as well as Super Regional participants Kentucky and Ole Miss. In addition to that trio of teams, the remainder of the tournament field includes Auburn; Baylor; Illinois; Liberty; Louisville; Mississippi State; Missouri; Missouri State; North Carolina State; Notre Dame; South Alabama;…