Rounding Third Softball

RTS has learned that Mississippi Valley State will name Jimmy Buckner head coach. The Tennessee native has worked on coaching staffs at Florida A&M and was a longtime aid at Volunteer State Community College. Buckner takes over for Lee Smith who retired as coach of the Devilettes after 19 seasons.

Division II Albany State has named Jason Bryant head coach. Bryant joins the Lady Rams after leading the program at conference rival Fort Valley State the past four seasons. The veteran coach has amassed over 400 career victories in his time at FVSU and previously with NAIA Brewton-Parker.

USA Softball has announced their Hall of Fame Class to be inducted in 2022. It includes a pair of pitching greats in Debbie Doom and Cat Osterman. Doom was an All-American at UCLA between 1982-1985. She also had a standout career professionally playing in the now defunct WPSL with the Orlando Wahoos, and was a mainstay on the USA National Team in the pre-Olympic era years. Osterman had a standout All-American career collegiately at Texas, and went on to play professionally in multiple leagues. She helped Team USA to a Gold Medal and two Silver Medals in three Olympic Games, including coming out of retirement this past summer to pitch in the Tokyo Games.

Oklahoma announced today that it has received a major gift from Love’s Travel Stops to move forward with construction of the Sooners new stadium project. The $9 million dollar donation is the largest single donation ever directed toward women’s athletics at OU. $20 million dollars had already been raised for the project. The new home for the defending National Champion Sooners will be called Love’s Field.

USA Softball has named Heather Tarr the new head coach of the Women’s National Team. Tarr, also the head coach at Washington, has served on the WNT Staff as an assistant coach since 2017. She helped guide the team to the Silver Medal at the Tokyo Olympic Games last summer. Tarr replaces Ken Eriksen who stepped down this past August after a long tenure leading the program.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi has named Kathleen Rodriguez their new head coach. Rodriguez spent the past five years as head coach at Trinity Valley Community College. TVCC won the Region XIV East tournament championship and made an NJCAA national tournament appearance in 2021. She spent 10 seasons as the head coach at UTEP where she started the program and holds the program record for total wins.

Olympic Medalists Lovie Jung and Natasha Whatley were enshrined in the USA Softball Hall of Fame Saturday night in Oklahoma City. The former Arizona Softball standout, Jung was a part of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Softball Team dubbed “The Real Dream Team” that dominated their way to the Gold Medal in the Athens Olympic Games and earned a spot in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame. Whatley, the former UCLA Bruin All-American, won an Olympic Gold and Silver Medal, three World Championship titles and two Pan American Games Gold Medals with her nine year run with Team USA.

The University of New Haven has named Don Justus their new head coach. Justus comes to the Chargers after serving as interim head coach at Hartford since last summer. He served as an assistant coach at the DI school currently transitioning to DIII since 2020 after serving 10 seasons on the coaching staff at DII Kutztown.

Olympia Haarlem knocked off top-seeded Sparks Haarlem in Game 3 of the Holland Series to win the Dutch Softball League Championship on Sunday. League MVP Lisa Hop went 2 for 4 at the plate in Olympia’s win. Winning pitcher Marielle Vleugels was 4 for 4.

Rollins College has named Christine Roser-LeFevers the program’s new head coach. The Rollins alum had a standout career for the Tars between 2008-2011. Roser-LeFevers had recently rejoined the coaching staff at Queens University as associate head coach after serving on staff between 2015-2019. She was the head coach at Mars Hill University last the two seasons before returning to Charlotte this past summer. Roser-LeFevers takes over for longtime Coach Michelle Frew who recently retired.