When the 2020 season abruptly ended, Vesely’s squad ranked fifth in the country in home runs and averaged nearly seven runs per game, a top-15 number nationwide. The Cougars have beaten at least one ranked opponent in every year under Vesely’s guidance and continued that streak with a win over Texas Tech in the shortened year.

After the abrupt end to the 2020 campaign, the Cougars utilized Zoom – as did so many programs across the country – and participated in team-wide book club discussions and mental training as they all learned to manage life in the midst of a pandemic. “[We knew] it was going to be different, so how do we acclimate ourselves and prepare our team for this new part of their lives was really the question,” Vesely said of her coaching staff’s approach to the offseason team meetings.

The Cougars reported minimal COVID-19 effects in the fall, though the staff did decide to shut down activities at one point to allow for some potential contact tracing effects to time out. Vesely and her staff liked what they saw from their team on the field despite the absence of live game action. “Overall, we did a pretty good job of mixing skill instruction, some game action, team stuff and not-so-much team stuff,” Vesely said in a recent phone interview.

Following the NCAA’s extended eligibility waiver that gave all players an extra year of eligibility after 2020, Houston brought back four “super seniors” for the 2021 season. Three will play for the Cougars this year – former LSU transfer Becca Schulte is taking a medical redshirt – and their return created some issues that Vesely and Co. had not encountered before as coaches.

“Obviously, you want [the seniors]back because you get the experience and leadership, and for us, those are some of our best players,” Vesely said. “But for our freshmen coming in, technically their opportunity to play is limited unless they earn it. So what we did is move around some players based on that. And we found that we have some really good ‘team player’ kids; you know, we can look at them and say ‘somebody at that position is back [as a senior], and we anticipate you playing there next year, but what’s the next-best option for spring ’21?’”

Earlier this summer, Houston added former National Player of the Year Lacey Waldrop to the coaching staff. She will work with the Cougars’ pitching staff, a unit where Vesely sees a lot of potential going into the 2021 campaign. “Going into [the 2020 season], we knew we were really young as far as game experience in the postseason,” Vesely noted. “Last year, they proved themselves early. It was almost a [feeling of]‘Whoa, okay, they’re dependable. They’re competitive.’”

Waldrop’s biggest task will be tutoring a staff that, while deep with arms, is still young. The Cougars list five pitchers on their 2021 roster; one true freshman, two “super freshmen,” and a pair of upperclassmen.

On the offensive side of the ball, Vesely said she wants to see the Cougar hitters pick up right where they left off in 2020. “[Assistant coach Lexie] Elkins did a good job of preparing them for the season with just a few months to work with them,” Vesely pointed out. “Now we know that our strengths are there, how do we prep to attack somebody else’s strengths?”

Asked about her preparation process in the presence of so much unknown for the 2021 season, Vesely paused before she responded. “Everything has just had to be more fluid,” Vesely began. “We haven’t done things like scout film yet, which is usually a December activity, because we know our schedule might change. So that means we’re working doubly hard in the second half of January… our kids have done a really good job of [being flexible], because we normally have a schedule out easily by mid-December, but even with their weekly schedule, we’ve had to adjust this or that.

“Every game that we get to play is a ‘get to’ because we didn’t GET to play last year. And there will be times this year that we’re not going to play every game [that’s on the schedule], so we have to play every game like every one matters.”

Despite the presence of so many changes and such great unknown in the current times, Vesely was ever-effusive in her praise for the members of her roster. “We’re incredibly fortunate that our kids are very goal oriented, and they want to be in the World Series,” the 5^th-year head coach said. “And how we do everything every day is based on that. ‘Did we perform well enough today to be one of the last teams standing?’ You know, that’s a very broad goal, a very lofty goal. That’s one of the joys of coaching these older kids, when they say ‘this is what we want; tell us how to get there,’ and the younger kids are all ‘yeah, this is what we want; let’s figure out how to get there.’ I don’t think something like the World Series is far-fetched at all.”

The post When Coaches Speak: Kristin Vesely, Houston appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

Fast-forward a decade to the present day, and Cognigni is now Lauren Karn, head coach of the OU softball team. Campbell, now a super-freshman pitcher, is the fast-emerging ace of the Golden Grizzlies’ pitching staff.

Under Karn’s guidance and with Campbell enjoying a breakout campaign in her first collegiate season, the Golden Grizzlies got off to a quality start during the 2020 spring season. The squad began the year with a win over Buffalo, later adding victories over teams like UMass, Villanova, and ACC foe Clemson. That win over Clemson, in the Tigers’ first year of existence as a program, ended Oakland’s 9-year winless drought against Power Five opponents.

“Last year, we had excellent team culture,” Karn said as she reflected on her team’s 2020 performance. “We had some pieces back into our lineup that had been injured the year before. We had two of our best players back from injury, and a freshman on the mound who we could really rely on to be consistent. The combination of everything really gave the team more spunk, as I like to call it. The team just constantly had faith, confidence, and understanding that they could get back into any game.”

Karn and her staff saw took some major positives from the team’s performance this fall, with the offseason months including a bevy of team practices and activities. “When we got going, everyone was so eager to start that it almost felt like we picked up right where we left off [in the spring],” Karn shared. She took particular care to commend her large freshman class for finding and embracing their roles quickly, despite the abnormalities of the fall season.

Led by the afore-mentioned Campbell, look for the pitching staff to be a strength for Oakland in 2021. “[Campbell] is someone that I would call a silent leader; she does the right things, makes great decisions, and is super competitive,” Karn said. “Knowing that we have more days where our full roster is ready to go and that we can hold our own in the circle, I think it showed last year that we can compete with some bigger teams. Even with the bad losses that we took, the ability to legitimately compete was something that did us a lot of good.”

The Golden Grizzlies boast a 7-headed pitching staff in 2021, including four players who exclusively pitch. A variety of speed, movement, and consistency from the group give Karn any number of options in the circle, something that she called “really exciting.”

Speed and unsung heroes are two themes that Karn expects from her offense in the coming year. “We definitely have more speed and several players who can get on base a lot,” she noted. “I look for us to have more stolen bases this year, and I also look for us to have some players step up who maybe don’t get the spotlight but always contribute at a consistent level.”

Discussing her lineup, Karn admitted that she takes a traditionally-unconventional approach to setting her batting order. “I learned it from Holly Aprile [at Pitt],” she said with a laugh. “You have to give your best hitters the most at-bats, and it will pay off because you put them in a position to not get walked around.”

As a freshman in 2018, Maddie Jones won the Horizon League’s Freshman of the Year award and was the Golden Grizzlies’ starting third baseman. After redshirting the 2019 season due to injury, she led the team in 2020 with a .328 batting average and a .936 OPS. Karn touted Jones’ progress this fall, calling her one of the team’s “X-factors on offense” in 2021.

Now entering her fourth season at the program’s helm, Karn knows what she wants to see from her team in the year ahead. “I want my girls to get the ebb and flow of a real season, and we still don’t know exactly how we’re going to do that,” Karn said, noting the lingering uncertainties about the 2021 season. “It’s going to come in different forms of competition, weeks that are harder and weeks that are a little less challenging than others. But I want them to have that, and for our young players to get to experience what that’s like since many of them really don’t know what that’s like yet.”

After an impressive start to the 2020 campaign and with a core of young standouts on the roster, look for the Golden Grizzlies to make some noise in the Horizon League this year and beyond.

The post Oakland Golden Grizzlies are trending upward behind young talent appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

During the early goings of the 2020 season, Steele’s club truly broke out; their 19-4 record was the best showing of any team in the Colonial Athletic Association during the abbreviated year. The Blue Hens were riding a 7-game winning streak when the season ended in mid-March, and owned wins over Boston College and Loyola Marymount.

“We want [our players]to remember what that first taste of success felt like,” Steele noted in a recent phone interview. “Because when you’re 19-4, that’s a pretty strong start. I think the coolest thing for me, as a coach, was to see them all-in all the time last year, because most of the athletes in our program haven’t had success like that. You could feel the momentum building.”

When the fall rolled around, after months of quarantine and being apart from one another, the Blue Hens were able to return to campus with safety protocols in place. Getting to go through team activities was something that Steele described as “pretty fortunate” for her players and program.

“We were able to bring everyone back this fall, and were able to have athletes even living on campus,” Steele said. “Almost all of our classes have been virtual [at Delaware]; classes started in September and we were able to begin team practice around the first week of October. We had a slow and methodical re-socialization and re-acclimation period, and then we worked in small groups and did skill development. But then we had everyone out on the field, and we were able to go right up until the week of Thanksgiving for the most part… We got a lot of live situations, and it was honestly much better than I anticipated, given what we saw happening across the country and in the northeast and our region. I really think we are fortunate with what our administration and medical staff, both in athletics and at the university level, were able to provide us.”

Two members of last year’s senior class elected to return for another chance at their final season, giving the Blue Hens a healthy roster of twenty-one players going into the spring. “I feel really good about the roster size at this point,” Steele said. “I’m not a big roster coach, just because I think player management is a huge component of having success. And when numbers get too big, it can be hard to manage that. So right now, I think we’re in a pretty good position with who we’ve got.”

One of the most impressive pieces of UD’s 2020 success was the team’s pitching staff; the 4-member unit combined for a 2.16 cumulative ERA and a strikeout/walk ratio better than 3/1. With all but one member of that staff returning, Steele sees the pitching circle as a decidedly bright spot for her team in the coming season.

“Emily Winburn is a sophomore now; she’s fun and competitive and in control and command the entire time. I thought it was pretty unique for a freshman to have that much poise and trust from your defense in your first year in college,” Steele said. “Kailey Christian led us in strikeouts last year, and she had a really impressive fall. She gets a lot of swings-and-misses and she’s also one of our better hitters; she’s a ball player first… Sarah Piening is one of our 5th-year seniors who came back, and if you look at her progression over the years, it has been constant improvement. She’s someone who is going to give you competitive innings and has experience under her belt. That maturity is important… and then we have two freshmen in Delani Sheehan and Kendall Shank that I’m really excited to see in the circle.”

Things will look a bit difference in CAA play this year; after an initial plan was scrapped, the conference has now been partitioned into North and South divisions for the coming year. Delaware, Drexel, Hofstra, and Towson are designated as part of the North division and will play six games against each of their divisional foes. For her program, Steele said that the Blue Hens will play a maximum of thirty games, which will limit their non-conference play to twelve match-ups after the consideration of the conference slate.

Look for the Blue Hen offense to be ready to roll right out of the box; Hanna Garber led the team with five triples last year, while Brooke Glanden posted a team-high batting average of .457 during the abbreviated year. Brittney Mendoza tied with Glanden for the team lead with four home runs, while returning 5th-year senior Karolina Flores posted a .340/.566/.485 slash line. The quartet of standouts should sit atop the Blue Hen lineup, and could wreak havoc on opposing pitching.

“We look for the complete hitter,” Steele said. “Someone who has the ability to drive the ball out of the ballpark is awesome, and we’re always going to look to recruit that kind of player. But we also like kids that can run, and score a lot of runs, and hit singles… It worked out where we have a good balance [in the lineup]; I really think we just have some good talent on this roster right now, and that’s exciting.”

As Steele, her staff, and her players prepare for a 2021 season that remains marked by uncertainty, she expects a long-standing strength to come in handy. “For our staff, I think we’re pretty flexible, honestly,” Steele mused. “We’re good at adjusting; we always tell [the players]that we want them to learn to ride the wave. You can’t get crushed by it; you’ve got to learn to surf. We use that analogy for a lot of things – from an umpire’s strike zone to weather delays. There are so many unknowns right now, but you have to work on seeing what’s right in front of your face. If there’s one thing to take from [2020], you have to plan to not have a plan.”

The post After hot start to 2020, Delaware out to prove they were no fluke appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

“[During the 2020 season], our whole mission was to play every single game as though it were a championship game,” Mizzou head coach Larissa Anderson said in a recent phone interview. “That’s the mentality that our players learned. So when COVID hit and our season was done, there was no regret whatsoever, because we left everything on the field every single game. Yeah, there’s disappointment that we couldn’t carry it out and really prove it to the rest of the country, but I also think we had already done that up to that point in time.”

As the 2021 season nears, the Tigers are no longer fettered by a postseason ban and will look to build on their highly-successful endeavors from this past spring’s shortened year. “When we had our first team meeting in August, it was really about ‘what has 2020 taught us’,” Anderson shared. “It’s every coach’s dream to say ‘play every game as if it is your last,’ and my team experienced that. And now, applying it to 2021, I really haven’t had to bring it up, because they’ve been there, they’ve been through it.”

When Anderson’s squad returned to campus in the fall and began team activities, the Tigers were able to avoid suffering from any major COVID-19 effects. A couple of early positive tests and some contact tracing were the main virus-related happenings for Anderson’s club, and her team’s general responsibility even allowed the Tigers to play with some fans in the stands late in the fall season.

“We were doing some intersquads, and in the last two weeks of October, we had our Black & Gold World Series,” Anderson said. “We had umpires come in, and we were able to open up our stadium to donors and season ticket holders. We announced who was batting, music played in between innings, and we tried to create as much of a game atmosphere as we could… overall, we’ve been in a very, very good situation.”

One of the deepest pitching staffs in the country last season called Columbia, Missouri home, and the Tigers return the vast majority of that same staff in 2021. One of the non-returners is Eli Daniel, who was also the team’s only senior and declined to utilize the NCAA’s extended eligibility waiver.

Each of the Tigers’ five pitchers on the current roster adds a unique element to the staff, Anderson said. “Megan Schumacher went home this summer, watched every single game that she threw, watched her body language and her demeanor, and she wrote down in a journal what kind of a pitcher she wants to be. Her mental process changed, and that has just helped her performance… Jordan Weber, I would say, is probably our most consistent pitcher. She gives you the same effort and energy every single day… Emma Nichols, we’ve added a couple of pitchers to her repertoire. With Emma, she knows exactly where the ball needs to be, and she’s gotten even better with her control and her command… Sophie Dandola came back [in the fall]and was in a totally different shape. She’s a freak athlete to begin with, and so strong, but she was just so lean and it helped her body move better… and then Lauren Krings, our freshman. She is going to be outstanding with her ability to naturally spin the ball, and she came in very prepared.”

As good as the Tigers’ pitching staff proved to be a season ago, the team’s offense also showed out on numerous occasions. The team will get a veteran boost in ’21 as former Louisiana-Lafayette transfer Casidy Chaumont is fully healthy and should be a major contributor in the Tigers’ lineup. The former Ragin’ Cajun will be found on the outfield grass now, and Anderson notes that the Moss Bluff, Louisiana native’s “arm is ridiculous, and her range is absurd.”

For her offense as a whole, Anderson summed things up succinctly: “They’re just so powerful,” she acknowledged with a laugh. “We have our entire lineup back. You go from Wilmes to Rollin to Kessinger to Wert to [Hatti Moore]; it’s just ridiculous the amount of power that they have. Our opponents can’t afford to make a mistake to the top of the lineup, and we can go down to about seven deep and then we’ve got two people at the bottom who are battling things out, but it’s really just exciting to see the experience that they have, too.”

Question marks abound about what the 2021 season will look like, even with just weeks to go until what is scheduled to be opening weekend. While the SEC has taken a wait-and-see approach before finalizing scheduling plans, Anderson’s preparation with her team hasn’t changed.

“My whole philosophy about preparation is something that started back with Bill Edwards at Hofstra,” Anderson said. “It’s always been to just prepare my team. That’s what I focus on. I don’t focus on who we are playing, and I don’t change my approach based on who our opponents are going to be. I need to prepare Mizzou Softball, and I need to prepare them for a game on February 12th. I don’t care about cancellations, or COVID, or weather. I don’t prepare my team for a rain delay; I make sure that this team is prepared and in the best possible situation to be successful. If things change, we make adjustments, but we don’t have control over those things. I can’t worry about things that are out of my control.”

The post With postseason chances returned, Mizzou will rely on powerful core appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

Amundson’s squad finished with a 12-10 record during the shortened 2020 campaign and were feeling confident as they neared conference play. The COVID-19 pandemic brought an abrupt end to their season , but there are still aspects of the abbreviated year that Amundson intends for her team to build on as they head into 2021.

“We were pitching really well, we were hitting well, so I do think there’s still a sense of ‘let’s hit the ground running from where we left off’,” Amundson said in a recent phone interview. “We do have some new players and things will look a bit different, but we have almost our full pitching staff coming back. There are a lot of familiar faces in the lineup. We learned last year that the game can be taken away from us at any moment; it could be through injury or, as we learned, a pandemic. I think a major benefit of that, actually, is simply being able to appreciate the chance to step on the field and work hard together.”

The Racers had four seniors on their roster last season, and thanks to the NCAA’s eligibility waiver, two of those upperclassmen elected to return for the 2021 season. Infielder Lexi Jones, who finished second on the team in home runs and RBIs during the shortened season, will return to help anchor the batting order, while right-handed pitcher and former Iowa transfer Taylor Makowsky will also return to provide depth in the pitching circle.

Carrying a roster of 23 players – a group that Amundson agreed was “good-sized” – the Racers will have depth in multiple positions, but won’t be elbow-to-elbow in the dugout. The importance of the latter factor was one that Amundson emphasized as a priority: “”The bigger your roster gets, the harder I think it can be to properly manage,” the veteran coach noted. “Depending on your coaching staff size, of course, but being competitive and giving adequate time in practice can be challenging.”

During opening weekend of the 2020 campaign, Amundson reached a career milestone, notching her 200th career head coaching win in a victory over Drake. “I didn’t even know that I was close to [200 wins],” Amundson recalled with a chuckle. “My sport admin actually came up and told me after the game. I’m super thankful that I’ve been here long enough to have 200 wins, and I’m thankful for the program helping me get to that number. I’d really like to win a conference title, though, and I think any win that I have under my belt would be 1,000% trumped by a championship!”

Amundson’s club was lucky enough to avoid any major COVID-19 outbreaks during their fall activities, and now approach the 2021 season hungry to continue moving up the ladder in the conference. Even with the unknowns that currently plague the sport as a whole, Amundson and Co. are as prepared as they can be for whatever lies in store.

“It goes back to some of the most simple things; there are things in this path that we can control and things that we can’t control,” Amundson observed. “For the things that we can control – like getting our swings in over the break, any classroom stuff that they have to be doing while they’re not on campus, things like that – it’s important that we do a really good job of what we do have control over.

“Whether we start playing on February 12th or not, our approach has been that we’re going to bust our butts so that when we get on that bus for our first game, we’re ready. It’s definitely been a challenging year, in a completely different and new way, to keep kids motivated for the competition season, because there has been so much change and so much uncertainty. But we’re committed to staying on the path that’s set for us, and when they call our number, we’re going to be ready to go.”

The post Returning veterans look to lead Murray State in tight conference fight appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

Entering the 2020 season, the Huskies are among the favorites to take home the national title. After her team finished just a game away from playing head-to-head for the championship last season, Tarr had plenty of quality pieces of the puzzle to build on from her team’s 2019 showing.

“I just think it was an amazing year for us, again,” Tarr said. “Taran [Alvelo] might have had her best year of all, and of course Gabbie Plain, I thought she got better from the year before. I really liked the growth of our group, being able to see freshmen like Sami Reynolds and the year that she had for our team… Kaija Gibson playing first base and holding that down… I was really proud of our team for giving ourselves the chance to be where we want to be, contending for a national championship.”

Pitching has long been a strength for Tarr’s program, and her squad enters 2020 with a combination of experience and youth that could be deadly for opposing offenses. Plain, now a senior, helms and anchors a staff that also includes a pair of highly-touted freshmen in Kelley Lynch and Brooke Nelson, as well as former DePaul transfer Pat Moore.

“I think the one thing we do know about Gabbie, in her career thus far, is that the more she pitches, the better she is,” Tarr noted. “Just watching that play out the last few years, we definitely know that we’re going to rely on her. We have some development objectives here for Brooke Nelson, Kelley Lynch, and Pat Moore. And, you know, we’re going to need do what we gotta do to win every single game that we can win, but not at the expense of the development of the young ones, development in terms of within our program and within our system.”

No shortage of offensive weapons highlight the Husky lineup, including spark plug Sis Bates and all-American backstop Morganne Flores. Reynolds, after an impressive freshman campaign, should be a valuable part of the batting order once again.

“This team has the ability to hit for more power and slug more, just as a group,” Tarr said. “They’re going to be able to put up more runs than we have… look at 2016, what was probably our best offensive team that we’ve had here, and it’s not that we’re going to back to those years, but I think this team has the ability to scratch the surface of those slugging numbers, the on-base percentage of what that team was able to do… and also, all of our pitchers hit. Lynch, Nelson, even Gabbie Plain and Pat Moore. The four of them, they’re able to produce offensively for us so I’m interested to see how they factor into our offense, as well.”

One of just a handful of top-level coaches who lead their own alma mater, Tarr had an impressive 2019 even outside of her team’s on-field successes, as she was inducted into the Little League Hall of Excellence in Williamsport in August and was named to the Team USA Olympic team coaching staff in November.

As she looks ahead to the 2020 campaign, and as her squad gets ready for the year ahead, Tarr knows how she will measure her team’s success in the season to come: “”[Our x-factor] will be our experience and playing the Husky Way,” Tarr said. “How we play the game, our shutdown defense, and our ability to understand over three years now, as a group and especially our senior and junior classes, how to get to the College World Series. They know that they have unfinished business, and it gives you peace of mind as a coach to know that your team is hungry to make good on the last three years of opportunity.”

The Huskies kick off their season in Atlanta, Georgia on February 7th against Ohio.

The post Tarr readies Huskies for another championship hunt appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

When the head coaching position at Loyola Chicago opened, however, things changed. A native of the Chicago suburbs – as is her husband – several members of Abbott’s family still live in and around Chicago. Applying for the job made too much sense. “I went into it hoping for an interview, and came out with a job,” she said.

The hiring process took “most of the whole summer,” Abbott noted, which made for an interesting season of recruiting. Announced as the Ramblers’ head coach on August 5, she had less than a month to get situated before the contact period opened on September 1 for communication with 2021 recruits.

“You plan recruiting around one job, then you suddenly have a different one, and that made it definitely interesting going into September 1st for this year,” Abbott mused. “But honestly, it definitely worked out and I feel very lucky to be at home, essentially, and not have to transition my recruiting circle. I know my staff, I know the area well; I understand what Loyola is about, because I’m from here.”

Despite her geographical and other familiarities, Abbott’s transition into her new role was not without its challenges. “That move from a forever-assistant to being a head coach, it’s a little bit like having a kid,” she said. “You’re never really sure you’re ready. And that was honestly a big piece in my decision-making; ‘do I want to be an assistant; do I really want to be a head [coach]?'”

In answering that question – ultimately answering in the affirmative, of course – Abbott said she considered a number of factors, with her familial proximity; geographical familiarity; and Loyola’s high academics all ranking high on the list.

Later in the summer, Abbott added an experienced program leader to round out her coaching staff, hiring Beth Golitko away from the head coaching position at Western Illinois to join the Ramblers. Golitko is joined on the assistant’s staff by Jackie Manrique, a holdover from the previous program administration.

“The really nice thing is that all three of us came in with different perspectives,” Abbott said of her staff. “That was my biggest thing; I wanted balance on our staff with who knew what. Honestly, [I wanted] to hire people who are smarter than me. They both have coaching experience, which has made my life a lot easier in this transition… [our staff]is pretty young, for sure, but I think that makes our dynamic pretty fun. All three of us have pretty easy-going personalities, but each of us check-and-balance a different box.”

As she prepares for her inaugural season at the helm of the Ramblers, Abbott expects her team’s offense to be strong, thanks to a trio of returning all-region players in Allyson Ivey, Shannon McGee, and Jessica Shields. “I think a big piece of our mindset is trying to build around what we already have, then just making sure that we finesse where we need to,” Abbott added.

Loyola will begin the 2020 season on February 7th, in a matchup against Omaha in Rosemont, Illinois as part of their own hosted tournament, the Rambler Rumble.

The post Alicia Abbott ready to make her mark as Loyola head coach appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

Even in just a pair of seasons back in Atlanta, Morales has already begun to turn the program around. In 2018, her first season at the helm of her alma mater, the Yellow Jackets reached the conference postseason for the first time in four years and finished above .500 on the year for the first time in six years.

For Morales, coaching at her alma mater is more than just a job; it is a sense of pride. “I feel fortunate, I feel lucky to get to do this,” she said. “There is a lot of pride, because every day, I sit in the office, I’m in the office that I walked into when I was fifteen years old and met with a coach on my visit. And so every single day, there are some things that are surreal about it… this is where I had some of the best years of my life, and now I get to be involved in helping young people on that same path. So it is definitely a source of pride for me.”

As she reflected on the 2019 season – when her team went 31-27 – one of Morales’ biggest highlights was her young team getting top-level competition under their belts: “First and foremost, getting experience in high-level games, against quality opponents,” she mentioned as one of the season’s bright spots. “It was definitely a growth year for us, and we had a lot of freshmen and sophomores out there at times. Giving them that experience in bigger games and in that arena was important, because you have to be in the big games before you can figure out how to win them.”

Morales expects her Yellow Jackets to take a still-unique approach in the pitching circle in 2019, adapting some strategies that she says she has gleaned from the game of baseball. “We’re got a solid staff, with a bunch of different looks, so I think we’re going to be different in that we are going to put our staff together like baseball, as we are going to potentially throw three or four arms at you in a game, and that’s tougher to prepare for as an opponent, so it gives us a bit of an advantage when you’ve got pitchers who can throw the ball down, throw it up, set up some righties and lefties… it’s just fun to try to figure out how we’re going to piece it all together.”

When it comes to her team’s offensive approach, Morales knows what history dictates for her batting order: “Going back to even when I played, Georgia Tech softball has always been known for hitting and hitting well,” she said. “Power has always been our thing, and that’s something that will never change about our program. I think we are always going to want to hit for extra bases, swing big bats. That’s always been our program identity, and we’re going to continue to do that… we’ve got some more lefties in the lineup this year, which has been an emphasis for us from a recruiting standpoint. Lefty bats do well at our field. We are going to continue to put runs up and try to put pressure on the opposing pitcher. And we’ve got a little more speed so we’re going to run more, add in some things that maybe we haven’t seen the last couple of years because we didn’t have the personnel.”

An all-American honoree during her playing career in Atlanta, Morales has her own methodology when it comes to statistical achievements. “I think batting average is dead is what I say,” she noted. “That’s not our focus; we focus on on-base percentage, slugging percentage… I don’t know how much anyone pays attention to baseball, but they have all kinds of crazy stats, and what we emphasize is our WOBA [weighted on-base average]and all of our players know what their WOBA stat is… I just don’t think that batting average tells the whole story, and if you’re focusing solely on that, you’re focusing on the wrong things. Obviously, I want you to hit the ball hard and to get on base; the harder you hit the ball, the better the chances for you to get on base.

“For us, we talk a lot about WOBA with our team, and they know if they want to get into the lineup, then they need to have a good WOBA number… there are some different ways you can calculate the stat, but we have a formula that uses on-base percentage and slugging percentage to get the numbers.”

The Yellow Jackets’ coaching staff under Morales includes hitting coach Reese Mariconda, a former Puerto Rican national team teammate of her now-boss, while former Georgia and Mississippi State pitcher Alison Owen is the other full-time staff member and pitching coach. ““Reese does a great job; she’s very detail-oriented, very meticulous with our hitters and in her approach to planning,” Morales said. “Alison is an in-state person, grew up in Georgia, played professionally, and does a great job of developing pitchers; at the same time, she understands what their strengths are and comes from the standpoint of playing to those strengths, not trying to mold them all into the same thing.”

Georgia Tech opens the 2020 season on February 6^th against UAB, and will host Power Five opponents Washington; Nebraska; and Iowa within the first two weeks of the season. The Yellow Jackets enter the year with a roster that includes five freshmen; five sophomores; seven juniors; and six seniors.

The post Georgia Tech great Morales aims to return program to former heights appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

Golitko would carry the interim tag into and through the 2018 season, and the process of the changing of the guard was one that she says definitely had an effect on her team.

“It was a good year for us,” Golitko said. “I thought we did a good job dealing with adversity this year, with the coaching change and my being appointed interim in December and the whole changeover. I thought they handled it really well, and we had a lot to push through and we did. Most importantly for us was our message to finish like we start, be consistent, and they did that pretty well.”

The Leathernecks finished the season 17-31, with a 9-6 mark in Summit League play. “We had some back-and-forth times during our non-conference part of the season, but we really hit our stride in conference play,” said Golitko. “So another one of our big takeaways was again starting and finishing in the same fashion. Striving on and pushing through and making good things happen.”

Golitko has spent the entirety of her coaching career at Western Illinois, minus a brief stint on staff at Cleveland State, and is also well-versed with the program’s traditions as a four-year letter-winner and Leatherneck alum.

“I think the familiarity definitely helped [with the transition],” added Golitko. “I’ve been here pretty much since the fall of 2007, and I think that really helped. I know what it’s like to be a student-athlete here and the experience that I had, and I want to help them have the same phenomenal experience that I did at WIU.”

Looking forward to the 2019 season, Golitko said she saw a lot from her team last season that she and her staff will use as ‘building blocks’ for the season ahead: “I think our biggest thing is that we have a really great pitching staff,” she said. “We lost one, so I’ve got four pitchers coming back. I think that’s really going to help us… we lost some pretty good hitters and fielders, too, but what we brought in in our 2018 class is just as strong. Building off of our pitching and growing our hitters are both things I think we can look at. I think this will be a season to remember for sure.”

​”My coaching style is really a mix,” Golitko added. “I like to think of the process, so it’s always a day-by-day. What are we doing to get ready for the next day, to get better? We have goals as a team, based on different factors. Winning the league, other performance goals, but I try to steer away from that in practice and focus on the little things, because getting better at little things are going to help us with the bigger things.”

Western Illinois begins the 2019 season on February 8th against IUPUI in Rosemont, Illinois.

The post When Coaches Speak: Beth Golitko appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.

“We were really young,” head coach Sami Strinz-Ward said after the season. “Even though we had a mix of some seniors that started for us, we had anywhere from four to six freshman in our starting lineup all season, as well. I think it was a really good year for us in terms of growth and building.”

Despite falling just short of reaching the NCAA tournament, LMU accepted an invitation to participate in the NISC postseason tournament.  The National Invitational Softball Championship, put on by Triple Crown Sports, included seventeen participating teams from across the nation. The Lions advanced through the tournament’s regional round and hosted the NISC championship round, ultimately emerging as the tournament champions, the first postseason championship in program history.

“I think [the season]was  really capped off by having the opportunity to play in the postseason tournament, and winning it, as well,” Strinz-Ward said.

Loyola Marymount is one of three Division I universities and one of just two D1 softball programs in Los Angeles. Sporting a decidedly-lower profile than the Bruins of UCLA and even the University of Southern California – which does not sponsor softball – it can sometimes be difficult to gain a share of the spotlight.

“We’re a small school, so we don’t get a lot of love, but then it’s our job to give people something to talk about,” Strinz-Ward added.

The Lions will enter the 2019 season with a decidedly different look than their NISC-championship team of 2018, having lost six seniors, including four regular starters. The departed group’s impact was not felt only on the field, either, according to Strinz-Ward.

“Our senior left fielder Brooke Christensen was the heart and soul of our team,” Strinz-Ward said. Praising the group of departed seniors, the Lions’ coach added of Christensen individually, “To define a great leader, she would say what needed to be said when it needed to be said, and she was unafraid of ruffling feathers, which is exactly what [our]young team needed.”

The Lions will be a young team again in 2019, but Strinz-Ward said that her squad’s youth will not stop them from aiming for high goals. “We may be young, but some of our young players got to experience the postseason this year and will carry that with them,” she said. “I think we will be able to make some noise and maybe surprise some people this year.”

Loyola Marymount committed to Strinz-Ward for the long-term this summer with a contract extension through the 2021 season.

The post When Coaches Speak: Sami Strinz-Ward appeared first on Justin's World of Softball.