Author: jmcleod

TRENDING NOW: NCAA TRANSFER TRACKER / COLLEGE COACHING TRACKER The first week of Season 2 of Athletes Unlimited is officially in the books. Team Osterman ended the opening week with an undefeated 3-0 record, while Team Hayward went 2-1, Team Warren 1-2, and Team Piancastelli 0-3. New team captains for week two will be Sahvanna Jaquish, Osterman, Tori Vidales, and Lilli Piper. The quartet will draft their teams on Tuesday evening. Before that draft, though, here are four players that were hot out of the gate in the league’s opening week. Sahvanna Jaquish Jaquish leads in the league’s unique point system after week…

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TRENDING NOW: NCAA TRANSFER TRACKER / COLLEGE COACHING TRACKER Former Oregon infielder Jazzy Contreras is transferring to San Francisco State, according to her social media pages. Contreras’ was one of the remaining names in the transfer portal without an announcement of her new destination; while no official announcement has still been made, Contreras did update both her Twitter and Instagram pages with an “SF State softball” notation. San Francisco State is a Division II school that competes in the California Collegiate Athletic Association. The CCAA is scheduled to return to competition in 2022 after the COVID-19 pandemic caused the 2021 season to be…

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Former Boston University pitcher Ali Dubois has announced plans to transfer to Florida State. Dubois is expected to sit out the 2022 season as a redshirt year and pitch for the Seminoles in 2023 for her final season of eligibility. She announced her destination on Instagram over the weekend. “Suuuuper excited to be a part of the [fsusoftball family for the next two years !! Go Noles,” Dubois wrote on Instagram on Friday evening. Following her announcement, Dubois spoke to JWOS contributor and In the Circle podcast host Eric Lopez about the move. “Everything happened so fast, I was looking into…

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Longtime Team USA stalwart Valerie Arioto announced her retirement on Thursday evening. Making the announcement on her Instagram page, Arioto wrote, “It’s official, I am retired.” The post was accompanied by a photo of Arioto in Tokyo, with her silver medal around her neck. Arioto was one of two veterans who spent the last decade as part of the US National team en route to the long-awaited Tokyo Games. “A journey that I am truly proud of has come to an end,” Arioto’s post continued. “I followed, led, fell and rose. I made mistakes that propelled me to achieve more.…

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The second season of Athletes Unlimited is scheduled to begin on Saturday and there are quite a few new faces that weren’t part of the league’s inaugural season in 2020. Among the crop of AU rookies – a group that makes up roughly 1/3 of the league’s 60-member pool of players – are Olympians, veteran professionals, and players fresh out of college. AU held a college “draft” earlier this spring that saw a dozen players earn invitations to play in the league, and a late-spring open tryout also saw four additional players signed. Here are five first-year AU pros worth…

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Miami (Ohio) and head coach Kirin Kumar have agreed to a contract extension, the school announced on Thursday. The new deal is through the 2024 season, JWOS has confirmed, making it a 3-year extension. Kumar led the Redhawks to the Mid-American Conference title and a berth in the NCAA tournament during her first season at the helm in 2021, The Redhawks went 46-10 on the year, with a 36-2 conference record. Prior to taking the helm at Miami, Kumar spent time on staff at Virginia Tech, NC State, Tulsa (twice), Tennessee Tech, Western Kentucky, and North Carolina.

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San Diego State has hired Victoria Hayward as an assistant coach, the program announced on Thursday evening. Hayward most recently was a member of the Canadian Olympic team and spent the last decade as part of the Canadian national team program, serving as team captain for the squad during the Tokyo Games. In addition to her international playing experience, Hayward also has collegiate coaching experience. She served as a graduate assistant at LSU in 2015, and as an assistant coach at UMass and Maryland. She spent the 2019 season as the Director of Operations at UCF. A founding member of…

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TRENDING NOW: NCAA TRANSFER TRACKER / COLLEGE COACHING TRACKER Former Texas pitcher Miranda Elish has entered the NCAA’s transfer portal, sources confirmed to JWOS on Thursday. Elish sat out the 2021 season after officially opting out with a COVID-19 waiver. On entering the portal, she carries both a graduate transfer designation and does not want to be contacted by miscellaneous teams; the latter designation is usually deployed by athletes who have a certain school or schools in mind as their preferred destinations. Prior to her opt-out in mid-January, Elish had been seen by many to be the face of Texas softball since she…

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Mike Heard is the new head coach at Omaha, the school announced on Tuesday. Heard most recently was the head coach at NAIA Midland College and spent a decade coaching at the travel ball level with the Nebraska Fury program. While at Midland, Heard compiled a 147-92 overall record and was a 3-time conference Coach of the Year honoree. He led his NAIA club to the conference’s regular-season title in 2021 and three total appearances in the NAIA’s national championship tournament during his tenure. Prior to his tenure at Midland, Heard was the head coach of the Nebraska Fury Fastpitch/Gold…

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