Rounding Third Softball

Pensacola State has announced former team member Courtney Heinritz has returned to the program to join their coaching staff. Heinritz competed at Toledo after two years playing with the Pirates. She spent the 2020 season as a graduate manager at Memphis.

Florida has announced that four-time program All-American Amanda Lorenz will fill the volunteer assistant coach position in the 2021 season. Lorenz, also a member of the USSSA Pride pro team, will work on both the offensive and defensive side of the ball for the Gators.

In a move that was seemingly about pandemic dollars and cents and lack thereof; San Diego has promoted assistant coach MJ Knighten to head coach. The 25 year old Knighten has one year of collegiate coaching experience to her credit before this promotion, and now becomes the youngest head coach in Division I. The search for a new head coach that lasted the last three months engaged many candidates, none of which seem to be able to move past what USD Administration was willing to pay based on what the market called for. The position compensation offered to most candidates that were spoken with ranged between 70-80K a year, which most agreed is well below the cost of living expense in the greater San Diego area. The former Nebraska All-American and California Native, Knighten also competed professionally in National Pro Fastpitch before joining the staff at Wichita State as a Graduate Manager for the 2018 season.

Frank Phillips College has named Ron Frost head coach. He joins FPC for his first head coaching position after serving on the coaching staff at Vernon College. Frost also coached baseball at his alma mater Alabama State before making the crossover.

Penn State has completed their coaching staff by adding Jeff Tylka as hitting coach. Tylka had most recently served as Director of Fastpitch at Elite Baseball/Softball Training in Chicago. From 2015-2019 he was head coach at Loyola Chicago.

Mercer has named Kenneth Bellamy assistant coach. Bellamy spent the last eight seasons as head coach at USC Salkehatchie. The Indians had the best season in school history in 2019 setting a program record with 36 wins while capturing the school’s first-ever NJCAA Region 10 Championship.

After speaking with numerous candidates with head coaching experience including Austin Peay Coach Kassie Stanfill and former successful Cardinal Coach Craig Nicholson; Ball State has settled for Lacy Wood from Harvard to lead their program. This will be Wood’s first head coaching endeavor.

New Virginia Tech assistant coach Mike Lewis has scored a National Championship in OKC without even stepping foot on the field with the Hokies. Lewis competed with his team the Kegel Black Knights claiming the USA Softball Men’s Major Fast Pitch National Championship this weekend at Hall of Fame Stadium.

Montana recently received a major program gift of $110,000. The gift to assist current program needs came from William Potter a Griz Softball supporter. Potter had already gifted $100,000 that will one day establish the William Potter Memorial Scholarship to support future players.

Bucknell has named former Penn State assistant coach Sarah Caffrey head coach. Caffrey spent the last five seasons as the top assistant for the Nittany Lions. She also had stops on staff at Utah State and Texas Tech.