Rounding Third Softball

The California Collegiate Athletic Conference will forgo winter/springs sports for 2021 due to the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. The conference stated it had “exhausted” multiple return-to-play models that would keep student-athlete health and safety at the forefront. The conference’s Board of Presidents then voted not to proceed with athletics for the remaining scheduled seasons. The CCAA sponsors 10 softball playing members on the Division II level.

National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) has canceled their 2021 season it was announced today. This is the second consecutive year as the 2020 season was also not played. The fledgling league has termed it as “suspended” due to the pandemic citing home venues not being available or available only with restrictive conditions that make team operations difficult. The NPF also cited challenges with international players being able to travel and compete in the league this coming season. The league, made up of a large majority of those international players from particular national team programs, have five current franchises with two based in Illinois and one each in Ohio, California, and Minnesota.

The World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) has announced new dates for the inaugural 18U Women’s World Softball Cup. The 16 team international event will take place August 28-September 5 in Lima, Peru. The event had been rescheduled once from August 2020, and then again from March/April 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic.

Young Harris has made a surprising change at the top releasing head coach Kayla Lucas. After weeks of speculation, YHC released a short statement regarding the “termination”. The move seemed to have caught both the softball community and the team off guard as they both publicly rally to Lucas’s defense. Lucas coached the Mountain Lions for five seasons, with the 2019 season resulting in 44 wins and a trip to the DII Softball National Championship. The squad got off to a 19-3 start before the 2020 season was cut short. This type of unexpected and oddly executed move regarding a softball program is not the first Young Harris Athletic Director Jennifer Rushton has been involved in. In 2016 she was was senior associate athletic director at now defunct Armstrong State that dismissed head coach Ted Evans after 12 seasons and a National Championship event run that same year. Assistant coach Jessie Homesley will serve as interim head coach for Young Harris moving forward.

RTS has learned Saginaw Valley State will name Embry-Riddle (AZ) head coach Christie Ambrosi to the same position. Ambrosi spent two seasons at ERAU going 29-33 in her first collegiate coaching position. The Kansas Native played at UCLA and was member of the U.S. Olympic squad that won a gold medal at the Sydney, Australia games. She ran the Kansas City Softball Academy before moving into collegiate coaching. Ambrosi inherits an ideal situation and loaded squad left by former head coach Todd Buckingham who departed for an assistants position at Western Michigan. The Cardinals were 16-2, had knocked off the #1 team in the country, and were ranked inside the DII Top 25 when the pandemic ended the 2020 season.

Sources in Arizona have confirmed to RTS that the Maricopa County Community College District will move forward with sports starting January 4, 2021. The district which includes eight ACCAC softball playing members on the NJCAA DII level, had canceled sports this fall and had no student-athletes on their campuses this semester. It was thought at the time the move was going to be for all sports for the totality of the 2020-2021 athletic year. This fall the district had established a committee of college and athletic administrators along with institution athletic trainers and other medical experts to gauge the viability of moving forward with the spring. A vote this morning by institute presidents and the chancellor of the Maricopa County Community College system reversed course clearing the way for sports to return this spring.

RTS has learned Louisiana infielder Brittany Holland will be transferring to Arizona State for the 2021 season. Holland will have three years of eligibility remaining for the Sun Devils after spending one year at JUCO Central Arizona in 2018, and one redshirt pandemic season with the Ragin’ Cajuns after an injury ended her 2019 season. She hit .333 in 11 games played in the shortened 2020 season.

University of Maryland Eastern Shore has announced they will forgo athletics for the remaining 2020-21 school year due to ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. A Division I member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, the Hawks Softball squad finished a pandemic shortened 2020 season 3-18. The move coined by an institutional release as “out of an abundance of caution and concern for the welfare of student athletes”, seems to be more about financial stability and lack thereof by schools of similar size and level like UMES.

RTS has learned that Rutgers middle infielder Aleah Mara will transfer to Toledo for the 2021 season. Mara played two seasons for the Scarlet Knights batting .252 in 2019 and .299 in 2020. The Michigan native will join the Rockets with three years of eligibility still intact as a result of the pandemic shortened 2020 season.

CBS Rivas won the Spanish Softball League Championship defeating Viladecans Sercotel in the best-of-three series final. They completed a perfect 16-0 season with a 7-2 victory over Viladecans Sercotel. The title was the second for CBS Rivas in as many years.