Former Central Michigan volunteer assistant coach Rick Erskin passed away on April 11th at the age of 75. According to his obituary, Erskin battled heart disease for seventeen years prior to his passing. Erskin spent a decade on staff at Central Michigan, a tenure that began following his retirement from the energy industry in 2007. His tenure with the Chippewas included the 2008 MAC West division title and the 2013 MAC tournament championship, earned after a 2nd-place regular-season finish in the West division. In addition to his decade-long tenure as a college softball coach, Erskin was an athlete in his…
Author: jmcleod
On Friday, the NCAA officially announced plans and regulations for fan attendance for postseason games. Most notably, attendance for postseason games will be capped at 50% capacity across the board. That capacity limit will extend to all remaining championships on the 2020-21 calendar, including the Women’s College World Series. It was also noted, possibly for the first time in direct fashion, that postseason contests hosted in places with no fan attendance allowed will continue in that practice, with no minimum fan attendance number set by the NCAA. The NCAA pre-championship manual requires a minimum seating capacity of 500 for potential…
The ten finalists for the Senior CLASS Award were announced on Friday. The list is headlined by four PAC-12 stars, including Washington’s Sis Bates; UCLA’s Rachel Garcia and Bubba Nickles; and Arizona’s Jessie Harper. Qualifications to be eligible for the award, according to the award’s website, include being classified as a Division I senior and having notable achievements in four arenas: community, classroom, character, and competition. An initial list of thirty candidates was whittled down to the ten finalists by a selection committee, and fan voting will play a role in determining the award winner. Votes from fans will be…
As we enter the home stretch of the 2021 season, teams are still battling through the effects and regulations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even this late in the season, some programs are paused or have seen their weekend series’ cancelled due to positive test results and/or contract tracing. Towson has entered a program pause that will stretch across the next two weekends, and has cancelled the Tigers’ Colonial Athletic Association series’ against Hofstra and Delaware, as well as a midweek matchup against Morgan State that was originally set for next Wednesday. The pause is directly related to a…
Georgia Tech great Jen Yee has been elected to the Yellow Jackets’ Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2021. Yee played for the Yellow Jackets from 2007-2010, with a one-year gap in 2008 to participate in the Beijing Olympics as part of Team Canada. She still holds the Georgia Tech program records for batting average (.425) and runs scored (229), among others. During her career, Yee led the Yellow Jackets to back-to-back ACC regular-season and tournament championships in 2009 and 2010. She was named a First-Team All-American in 2010 and earned ACC Player of the Year honors…
Harding head coach Phil Berry will retire following the 2021 season, the school announced. Berry informed the team on Monday of his plans to retire at the end of the season; after leaving coaching, Berry and his wife, Debbie, intend to move to Georgia to be close to family. Now in his eighth season leading the Harding program, Berry earned his 250th career win earlier this month. He boasts a record of 253-163 during his tenure with the Lady Bisons, and was responsible for restarting the softball program at Harding. The 2021 season is Harding’s sixth consecutive year with a…
Arizona has released a health update on super-senior standout Alyssa Palomino-Cardoza. Palomino-Cardoza was injured during the Wildcats’ series opener against Arizona State; while attempting to beat out an infield ground ball, Palomino-Cardoza appeared to step and land awkwardly. She was later helped off the field. On Tuesday, Arizona softball released the following statement via Twitter: https://twitter.com/ArizonaSoftball/status/1384565723138203654 The news is especially noteworthy due to Palomino-Cardoza’s history of leg injuries. She tore her right ACL and missed the 2016 season, then tore her left ACL late in the 2017 season. Following Palomino-Cardoza’s injury, Janelle Meono took over duties in center field for…
Former Kentucky pitcher Meghan Schorman has elected to transfer to become a Ragin’ Cajun, she announced on social media on Tuesday. “First I just want to say that it is okay to change your mind,” Schorman wrote on Twitter on Tuesday morning. “I’m at the point in my life where i’m (sic) constantly changing my mind and that’s okay. I’m excited to announce I will be continuing my academic and softball career at the University of Louisiana Lafayette.” As hinted in her tweet, the decision is an about-face from a previous announcement; on April 8th, Schorman announced that she had…
The eight pre-determined sites that will host a Division 2 softball regional have been announced. One team from each of Division 2’s eight regions will host a “super-sized” regional; with the elimination of the Super Regional round this year, the champion of each regional will advance to the Softball Championship in Denver at the end of May. The NCAA chose to pre-determined Regional hosting sites due to the health and safety protocols attached to the pandemic, and the necessary time to have proper measures in place ahead of individual rounds of the postseason. A trio of teams in last week’s…
Throwing a perfect game is a pretty impressive feat. Just ask Fordham’s Devon Miller; she’s becoming an expert in that field. During a series against La Salle in early April, Miller threw back-to-back perfect games in consecutive outings. She is just the second player in Fordham program history to throw multiple perfect games in a career. “Over that last week [before the La Salle series], I had a lot of personal goals for myself,” Miller said after her history-making weekend. “Throughout that week, I was working extra hard and I had a kind-of ‘no limits’ mentality… I wanted to go…