Rounding Third Softball

Former Japanese Olympic Softball catcher Emi Inui has become the first woman to be hired as a scout for a Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) club. She joins the scouting department of the Orix Buffaloes after working in player development at the club’s Youth Academy. Inui was a catcher on the Japanese National Team that earned a bronze medal at the Athens Olympics in 2004 and a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

New Texas Tech Head Coach Sami Ward has completed her initial staff it was announced today. Both Randy Ward and Brittany Miller will be joining Ward in Lubbock after working on her staff at Loyola Marymount. Randy Ward, husband of head coach Sami Ward, will serve as associate head coach working with infielders and hitters. Miller will work as the pitching coach for the Red Raiders. Both coaches held similar roles at LMU.

USA Softball has announced a new evaluation method and system for consideration and inclusion to the National Team Program. The launch of the High Performance Program (HPP) will focus on player and sport development within the United States. The HPP will consist of four levels: local area identifiers, local area invitational tryouts, regional team events and USA Softball Junior Women’s National Team (JWNT) age-specific tryouts.

The NCAA Division III Presidents Council has approved a blanket waiver on eligibility in 2020-21 sports season for all student-athletes as a result of the affects of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The one-time waiver allows DIII athletes to compete this sports season without being charged a year of eligibility. In essence this grants all athletes in DIII an additional year of eligibility.

Alabama-Huntsville has announced that assistant Melanie Carter has been promoted to associate head coach. Carter joined Coach Les Stuedeman’s staff in 2010. Since joining the UAH staff, the Chargers have posted a 396-144-1 record while making nine NCAA tournament appearances. Prior to her time in Huntsville she was head coach at Shorter University for four seasons.

Letty Olivarez will be returning to the coaching staff at San Jose State the program announced. Olivarez worked as pitching coach for the Spartans in 2017 and 2018. She spent the past two seasons on staff at Texas Tech and also had stops at Arizona State, Stanford, and Cal State Northridge.

The Argentina Softball Confederation has announced it will launch a Women’s National League in 2021. The Liga Nacional Femenina will be made up of 16 teams split into four regions. The winner of each regional tournament will advance to a four team payoff. The winner of the final four will be crowned as LNF Champion.

Bethune-Cookman has pulled the plug on the 2020-21 sports season as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic school officials have announced. This will include their softball program that will not compete in the 2021 season after going 5-28 in a pandemic shortened 2020 season. BCU is a Division I member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference. Officials indicated this was about “risk” to student-athletes, however the softball/spring sports season is more than three months away. This indicates this would be more likely about financial shortfalls than overall safety concerns.

Utah State has promoted assistant coach Laura Heberling to associate head coach. She has worked on head coach Steve Johnson’s staff since the 2018 season heading up the Aggie Pitchers and Catchers. Heberling arrived in Logan after a head coaching stint at USC Beaufort.

Loyola Marymount has moved quickly filling their open head coaching position naming Tairia Flowers to lead their program. Flowers joins the Lions after 10 seasons coaching the program at Cal State Northridge. She had a record of 259-263 with the Matadors good for second in all-time program wins. Her only NCAA appearance and conference championship was in the 2015 season where CSUN finished 41-17. Flowers is also a mainstay within the USA National Team Coaching Pool and played for Team USA from 2001-2008. She helped the squad to gold in 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.