Rounding Third Softball

Bianka Bell has been hired to the coaching staff at Pittsburgh. Bell, a former USA National Team member, comes to the Panthers after serving as an assistant at Quinnipiac his past season. Before going to Connecticut she worked on the staff at Embry-Riddle in Florida.

Amanda Fefel has been named head coach at Eastern New Mexico. Fefel joins the Greyhounds after spending the past two seasons as an assistant coach at Appalachian State. She has also had coaching stops at Clarendon, Coppin State, and George Mason.

It looks like former Tennessee Lady Vol Ally Shipman has found a new home, and it’s with an SEC rival. Shipman indicated on Social Medal tonight that she will be joining the program at Alabama. She played in 53 games at UT in 2021 where she hit .304 with a .551 slugging percentage. She has two years of eligibility remaining with the Crimson Tide, and that could be extended to three if a redshirt is applied from her injured freshman campaign.

Sources have confirmed to RTS that Kimball Cassady will be named the new head coach at Samford. Cassady has spent the past 11 seasons leading the program at Birmingham-Southern. She now relocates just down the road in the Magic City to coach the Bulldogs. In her time at BSC she compiled an impressive record of 319-126-1 at the DIII school. This years Panther team had possibly their best showing under her leadership finishing ranked 5th in the country and just one game shy of playing for a National Championship.

Idaho State has filled their head coaching position with Andrew Rich. He joins the Bengals after spending the last three seasons at Boise State. Rich helped the Broncos reach the NCAA Postseason in 2019. He also has worked on staffs at Sonoma State and Fresno State.

Georgia State has named Angie Nicholson their new head coach. Nicholson spent the past five years leading the program at Hampton compiling a record of 85-79 in four seasons (Hampton did not compete in 2021 due to the pandemic). The journeyman head coach has also had stops at Eastern Illinois, Cleveland State, Butler, Ursuline, and Cuyahoga Community College.

RTS has confirmed that Drexel will not renew head coach Carl Taylor’s contract. Taylor and his assistant coaches Ray and Michelle Hastings had been on administrative leave since the end of May pending an investigation into what the school termed “troubling allegations of misconduct” in the treatment of players. However, RTS has learned that the investigation still has not been concluded and only about 1/3 of the team has been interviewed about the supposed allegations. Taylor and his staff have also not received any official notice of allegations against them to this date. RTS has reached out to Drexel Officials for comment, but as of this posting had not received a response. Taylor’s current contract ran out on June 30. He lead the Dragons for seven seasons starting in 2015.

Italy won the Gold Medal clinching the European Championship Final on Sunday defeating the Netherlands 9-5. Italy now moves on to compete for the grandest Gold of all starting July 20 in Tokyo at the Olympic Games. While the Netherlands settled for the Silver, the Czech Republic rounded out the medals with a bronze defeating Israel 2-0. Guilia Longhi from Italy had the the highest batting average for the Euro Championship hitting .667 for the event. Erika Piancastelli from Italy also led the event in home runs with six. The Czech’s had some impressive showings in the circle as both Katerina Kindermannova and Veronika Peckova led the way with the lowest ERA (0.00 by Kindermannova) and most strikeouts (65 by Peckova).

In a highly unexpected move, Nevada has named Linda Garza head coach. Garza had recently resigned at Fresno State after 4 1/2 seasons coaching the Bulldogs with 161-82 record. She had been on leave from the program since April 9 and stepped down from her position in Fresno officially on June 15. Garza replaces Josh Taylor who departed the Wolf Pack to accept the head coaching position at Louisiana Tech.

RTS has learned that Fort Lewis College will name Otero Junior College coach Dwight Sanders their new head coach. Sanders has coached Otero since the 2015 season. He takes over a Fort Lewis squad that went 20-23 in the 2021 season. Former head coach Ashley Reeves resigned last month to accept the head coaching position at Harding.