Georgia Bulldog veterans Ciara Bryan and Justice Milz have both entered the NCAA’s transfer portal, sources confirmed to JWOS late Wednesday. Bryan and Milz are both set to be “super seniors” during the 2021 season, utilizing the extended eligibility waiver provided by the NCAA due to the COVID-19 pandemic that shortened the 2020 year. During the shortened season, Bryan tied for the SEC lead with eleven home runs. During the shortened year, Bryan’s full stat line also included 31 RBI, 39 runs scored, an .860 slugging percentage, 33 hits, and fifteen stolen bases. Her eleven home runs also ranked fourth…
Author: jmcleod
Utah State has promoted assistant coach Laura Heberling to the title of associate head coach. Heberling is in her third season on the Aggies’ staff, and serves as the program’s pitching coach. During the abbreviated 2020 campaign, her pitching staff posted a 3.90 cumulative ERA with thirteen wins and 89 strikeouts. Sophomore ace Kapri Toone posted a 2.35 ERA on the year with a 1.18 WHIP, opponent’s batting average of .229, and an 8-1 overall record. Prior to joining the USU staff, Heberling spent five seasons as the head coach at South Carolina-Beaufort. She collected a 177-92 career record with…
Loyola Marymount has hired Tairia Flowers as their new head coach. Flowers spent the last decade as the head coach at Cal State Northridge (CSUN), and earned more than 250 victories during her tenure leading the Matadors. She led the program to a Big West conference championship and NCAA tournament berth in 2015. Named the Big West Coach of the Year also in 2015, Flowers’ program produced the conference Player of the Year in 2015, ’17, and ’18, as well as a pair of players who earned the conference’s Defensive Player of the Year award. An assistant coach on the…
Who is she? Liz Young Walther, a former catcher for the New Mexico Lobos and head coach for the Detroit Mercy Titans. What is she known for? Young began her playing career at Kent State before transferring to New Mexico. She was a 2-time academic all-conference selection as the starting catcher for the Lobos, and as a junior, she threw out twenty runners trying to steal. Young spent one summer season playing professionally for the Akron Racers in 2010, and later embarked on a coaching career that included stints on staff at her alma mater, UNM; Ohio University; and Western Illinois. She…
Sami Strinz-Ward’s departure to take the head coaching position at Texas Tech leaves Loyola Marymount without a coach deep into the fall semester. Strinz-Ward had five successful years at LMU, turning the program into a mid-major powerhouse and winning the NISC postseason tournament title in 2018. LMU returns pitching ace Linnay Wilson and added former George Mason ace Marina Vitalich via transfer. Combine a 1-2 punch in the circle with offensive standouts like Molly Grumbo, and a new coach will walk into a quality situation out in Los Angeles. Could one of these candidates be the program’s next head coach?
When Jackie Robinson made his debut in Major League Baseball in 1947, there was a fourteen-year-old girl in Arizona who had recently begun her own athletic career. While Robinson paved the way for black athletes in baseball, this young woman quietly did the same for any number of athletes in the sport of softball. Chances are, you may not have heard of Billie Harris. You’ve never seen her play on television, and you won’t find her name in the NCAA record books. Her contribution to the game of softball and to the cause of black female athletes, however, is indelibly…
Long before the Transfer Portal arrived on the scene, players moving schools was still a regular occurrence. While it didn’t occur with the ease, or even perhaps the frequency, that it does in today’s game, transfers have been a part of college sports for a long time. There’s often an added bonus when a player arrives at a new school with collegiate playing experience already under her belt; whether the “newbie” jitters are settled or the proper mindset is already in place, a transfer can make an indelible mark on her new program even with fewer than four years to…
Emporia State has announced that program softball great Samantha Sheeley will be inducted into the athletic department’s Hall of Honor. Sheeley played at ESU from 2007-08, and led the Hornets to the Division II national championship game as a senior. She tied a program single-season record with 31 wins in her final collegiate season, and earned a mention on the all-tournament team at the championship tournament. The Pitcher of the Year in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association in 2008, she was twice an all-conference selection and was named an all-American. Following her career at ESU, Sheeley spent two years in…
Oregon super sophomore shortstop Jasmine “Jas” Sievers is opting out of the 2021 season. “I just want to clear up a few things,” Sievers said in a Youtube video published on Sunday. “I am three months pregnant… I did not quit softball; I’m just opting out of the season because I got that opportunity to make that decision because of COVID and everything going on. I still have my scholarship, I’m still a part of, like, Oregon softball. I just will not be participating in the 2020-2021 year.” Sievers earned first-team all-PAC 12 honors as a freshman in 2019, batting…
Sami Strinz-Ward will be named the next head coach at Texas Tech, sources have confirmed to JWOS. Strinz-Ward spent the last five seasons as the head coach at Loyola Marymount, her alma mater. During the 2018 season, Strinz-Ward led the Lions to the National Invitational Softball Championship postseason tournament title. In 2019, the program reached the 40-win plateau and again made their way to the final round of the NISC tournament. A 3-time West Coast Conference Coach of the Year, Strinz-Ward shared the award in 2016 and earned the trophy outright in both 2018 and 2019. Prior to her return…