Rounding Third Softball

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.

Former Auburn Softball player Justus Perry has been named assistant coach at St. Catherine University in Minnesota. Perry’s playing career concluded in the spring of 2021 appearing in 211 games at first base for the Tigers.

The National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) has bestowed the 2021 Newberry “Perseverance” Award posthumously to Mark Lumley. The longtime coaching staff member at Baylor passed away in December of 2020 after battling cancer for the fourth time. In a 15-year period up until 2019, Lumley never missed a practice, recruiting or games due to treatments. The Donna Newberry “Perseverance” Award recognizes an NFCA member coach who has demonstrated extraordinary strength of will and character in the fight to overcome a physical, mental, or social adversity that presented an additional challenge to the already demanding job of a coach.

The University of Tennessee Martin has announced it will enshrine former head coach Donley Canary in the schools Athletics Hall of Fame. Canary coached the Skyhawks from 2002 to 2019 amassing 581 victories. The total is fourth most in Ohio Valley Conference History. In those 18 seasons he led UT Martin to a pair of OVC regular season championships, two OVC Tournament titles and three postseason appearances. Former three-time All-OVC honoree, 2012 OVC Player of the Year, and All-American Leah Taylor Eakin will also join her former coach in UTM’s Hall of Fame in the class of 2021.