Sharonda McDonald has been named the new head coach at Campbell, the school announced on Tuesday. McDonald spent the 2018 season on the staff at Ohio State, where she helped lead the Buckeyes to a fourth-place finish in the Big Ten and a berth in the NCAA tournament. Prior to her brief tenure at Ohio State, McDonald had been an assistant at Florida, LSU, Texas Tech, Ohio, and Texas Southern. She was a part of the 2017 Florida Gators squad that played for the national championship. Her resume also includes a single-season stint as head coach of the NPF’s Chicago Bandits.…
Author: jmcleod
Teams in the Southeastern Conference could soon see another name added to their payroll, after a vote at the SEC’s Spring Meetings earlier in June. Affecting both baseball and softball, the proposal outlined the addition of an option for a fourth paid coach on a team’s coaching staff. Teams would not be required to carry a full staff of four paid coaches, but the proposal would give the opportunity to do so. After being voted on and passed at the conference’s meetings, the proposal moved forward to seek an NCAA vote and approval. Only after passing an NCAA vote could…
Florida State great Veronica Wootson will be inducted to the Seminoles’ athletics Hall of Fame later this year. Wootson starred for the Seminoles from 2004-07, helping lead the program to the 2004 ACC championship in a season that culminated in a Women’s College World Series berth. The ‘Noles reached the NCAA tournament in each of Wootson’s quartet of seasons on the squad. The 2004 conference Rookie of the Year, Wootson also earned a trio of all-American awards during her career. She was selected to the all-American second team in 2004 and earned first-team honors in 2006 and third-team honors in…
Jimmy Kolaitis will be named the new head coach at UAB, sources have confirmed to JWOS. Kolaitis had most recently been an assistant coach at Oregon, where he helped lead the Ducks to the #1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament in 2018 and a berth in the Women’s College World Series. Kolaitis spent five seasons as the hitting coach at Oregon, shepherding the Ducks’ offense and helping lead the team to a quartet of Women’s College World Series appearances. Prior to his time at Oregon, Kolaitis spent five years at South Alabama as an assistant coach, in charge of…
Former all-SEC honoree Braxton Burnside will transfer from Missouri to Arkansas, the now-former Tiger announced via social media on Friday. Burnside earned freshman all-conference honors in 2017 and was a top 25 finalist for the NFCA’s National Freshman of the Year award. As a freshman, Burnside hit twelve home runs and recorded fifty-two RBI. In 2018, Burnside again posted team-leading numbers, with a .275 batting average, three home runs, and twenty-eight RBI. She recorded twenty doubles during her pair of seasons in Columbia. Burnside helped pace the Tigers in the NCAA tournament, posting a .417 batting average and .833 slugging…
The Women’s College World Series championship series between Washington and Florida State averaged 1.38 million viewers, according to data provided by ESPN. Game 1 of the championship finals averaged 1,232,000 viewers based on ESPN’s data. That number was up 20% over the most recent comparable matchup, game one of the 2016 championship series. Data from 2017 was not applicable since game one of that championship series went to seventeen innings and spanned nearly five and a half hours. Florida State won game 1 of the series by a score of 1-0 thanks to a 6th-inning home run by Anna Shelnutt.…
Bryant will name Nick French as the Bulldogs’ new head coach, JWOS has learned exclusively. French spent the 2018 season as an assistant coach on the staff of Shayne Lotito, from whom he takes the program’s reins. The position will be his first as a full-time head coach. Prior to joining the Bulldogs staff in the summer of the 2017, French’s coaching resume included stops at Towson; Georgia; Arizona; Memphis; and Holy Cross. French was a part of the 2016 Georgia coaching staff that led the Bulldogs to the Women’s College World Series, ending a six-year drought of the program’s appearing…
In a surprising move, DePaul head coach Eugene Lenti has announced his retirement. Lenti spent thirty-seven seasons as the head coach of the Blue Demons, a tenure that included a quartet of appearances in the Women’s College World Series, most recently in 2007. The Blue Demons’ best finish came in 1999, when Lenti’s club was eliminated in the semifinal round of the World Series. A victor of more than 1,300 games, Lenti hit the magic #1300 earlier this year, in a shutout win over Presbyterian in February. Lenti’s only collegiate coaching job had been at DePaul, where he took the reins…
North Texas has announced Rodney DeLong as the new Mean Green head coach. DeLong spent the 2018 season as the head coach at Austin Peay, where he led the Governors to an unexpected second place finish in the Ohio Valley conference standings and helmed the program through a berth in the NISC postseason tournament. The Governors went 39-19 in the 2018 campaign, including a 17-4 mark in conference play. Prior to joining Austin Peay, DeLong had been an assistant coach at Georgia Tech and a head coach for Cameron University and at the high school level. DeLong owns a career win-loss…
Former Northwestern slugger Adrienne Monka will be inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame this fall, the school announced in a press release last week. During her career, Monka was twice named a first-team all-American, as well as the Big Ten’s Freshman of the Year in 2009. She hit fifty-five home runs during her career and worked 190 walks, a mark that ranked in the top ten in the NCAA’s history at the time of her graduation. At her career’s end, Monka held three all-time program records, including slugging percentage (.747); on-base percentage (.549); and walks (190). She also ranked…