Softball season is just around the corner and there promises to be a lot of great softball in store. Following the PAC-12’s schedule rollout on Tuesday, the Big Ten is the only Power 5 conference where questions remain about how the season will look. Championship favorites like UCLA, Washington, Arizona, and Alabama certainly merit attention as the season winds on, and other teams like LSU and Oklahoma are sure to dominate headlines in their own right. Outside the upper echelon and the top 25, though, there are some teams you will want to keep an eye on this year. We’ve…
Author: jmcleod
Cal State Bakersfield’s softball team has opted out of playing in the 2021 season, the school announced on Wednesday. According to a school press release, “there were a number of members of the softball team who wished to compete this season, but the majority of the squad opted to sit out.” The number of players opting out left the Roadrunners without enough players to field a full squad that would hold up over the course of a full season. “This was an extremely difficult and heart-breaking decision that our team made regarding opting out of the 2021 season,” head coach…
The PAC-12 gave the green light on Tuesday for softball schedules to be released, and we finally have the full 2021 blueprint for what a championship run would look like for some of the nation’s best teams. Seven of the league’s nine teams released full schedules; Stanford and Oregon State have not yet released the non-conference portion of their respective slates. An important and interesting note is that weekend series’ against PAC-12 opponents will now be 4-game sets, but only three of the four will count toward the conference standings. Our knee-jerk reactions and takeaways from the en masse schedule…
Believe it or not, there are still coaching moves happening even as we near single-digits in the countdown ’til the start of the 2021 Division 1 season. As always, we’ve got the latest in the coaching world, all here in one place.
Stephanie Ceo is the new assistant coach at D2 Embry-Riddle. “Well I am officially the new Embry Riddle Aeronautical University Assistant Coach!” Ceo wrote on her personal social media accounts. “I am so excited and grateful for [ERAU head coach Kelsi Dunne] and [ERAU Athletics] for this opportunity!! I can’t wait to get out on the field! And of course a big THANK YOU to the athletes who decorated my office! I feel so loved already!!” Ceo spent the summer of 2020 as an assistant coach with the USSSA Pride professional franchise. Within the college ranks, she spent the 2020…
Forty-eight players make up the 2021 JWOS Preseason All-American teams. The PAC-12 led all conferences with fifteen players selected to the list, while the SEC was close behind with fourteen representatives. The Big 12 placed six players on the list, while the ACC placed four and the Big 10 has two. The Sun Belt and Conference USA also placed a pair of players on the All-American roster, while the A10, CAA, and Big South had one each. UCLA led all teams with five players earning Preseason All-American recognition. Alabama, Arizona, LSU, Oklahoma State, and Washington each placed three players on…
Madison Preston has left the Arizona State program, sources confirmed to JWOS on Monday. Preston transferred to Arizona State prior to the 2020 season, after spending the first two years of her career at Alabama. In her lone season as a Sun Devil, Preston made fifteen appearances in the circle, including seven starts. She posted a 5-4 overall record, with a 2.77 ERA and 69 strikeouts on the year, with 53 innings of work to her credit. As a freshman and sophomore at Alabama in 2018 and ’19, Preston recorded a 7-5 record in the circle, going without a decision…
Coming off of a dominant 25-1 showing during the 2020 season, the UCLA Bruins are the unanimous No. 1 team in the country as reflected in the JWOS Preseason Top 25 poll released on Monday. The Bruins return virtually their entire roster from a year ago, as well as future Olympians Rachel Garcia and Bubba Nickles, who return to UCLA after a year away with Team USA to prepare for the since-postponed 2020 Games. Washington checks in at No. 2 in the poll, as they also return a decorated senior class that includes superstars Sis Bates and Morganne Flores. Gabbie…
College softball returns THIS WEEK. No, you didn’t mark your calendars wrong; Division 1 softball doesn’t kick off until February 11th. But some of the top teams in Division 2 do get their seasons started in the final days of January. D2 softball can, unfortunately, be something of an afterthought on the national scene. This does a great disservice to a number of quality teams and stellar players, who have the talent and put in the work, but for far less notoriety. As the Division 2 season officially gets underway in 2021, we’ve picked ten players whose names you should know…
Sisters Eliyah and Alycia Flores no longer appear on the Oklahoma softball roster. As of Thursday, neither of the Flores sisters had entered their names in the NCAA’s transfer portal, sources confirmed to JWOS. An OU spokesperson had no comment when contacted by JWOS. Eliyah Flores, a “super sophomore” who was the Sooners’ every day starter at third base in 2020, owns a .224 career batting average in 147 career at-bats. She was a spot-starter and frequent mid-inning replacement during her first two years in Norman before earning a starting spot with the 2020 season. She batted .167 with two…