Softball: The Season of Achievements

With a month and a half of the season left to play for the Sewanee softball team, the Tigers are displaying major improvements in their road to achieving the most wins in Sewanee softball history. The record of 12 wins was accomplished just last year, in which Head Coach Merritt Yackey reached double-digit wins for the first time in his eight years as a head coach at Sewanee. In each of his eight years, he improved not only record-wise but stats-wise in terms of how well his players have been able to put the bat on the ball. At the halfway point of this season, Yackey has 7 players hitting over .300 batting average with the team overall batting average being .287, which is a good improvement from the previous 12-win team’s batting average of .262 in 2023. 

As the Tigers stand at a 5-19 record coming off a spring break trip to Arizona, where they played six games in a span of four days, they look to get back on track to their winning ways with competitions next week against non-conference opponents Maryville and Augustana. Led by freshman outfielder Sydney Tackett, senior infielder Eve Bournias, sophomore catcher Hannah Wilson, and sophomore infielder Maggie Barker who are all on pace to getting career highs in batting average and hits this year. In many ways, the batting of the Tigers is no longer an area for drastic improvement for the Tigers as they have garnered at least 3 runs in 13 of their 24 games this season. On the other hand, the Tigers have struggled on defense due to many of their pitchers and fielders being young and inexperienced underclassmen. However, with many games played under their belt it’ll be sooner rather than later when the Tigers will exhibit being a force on the defensive side of the diamond.

With conference play quickly approaching, the Sewanee softball team are 5th in conference standings with plenty of opportunities to make a soaring push to get a higher seed in the conference tournament in late April. After every game it is easy to see that the Tigers are getting better in all phases of the game. It is certainly possible for them to go on a winning streak in the second-half season.

To begin, they travel to face rival Rhodes in a three-game series starting on Friday March 29th. As often stated in sports, anything goes when two rival teams face off. Then, the Tigers end the season with a final home series against Millsaps before going on the road again. There they will face off against last place Hendrix and Centre, which shows that Sewanee softball is capable of garnering 8 wins out of the last 16 games to achieve the most wins in a season throughout decades of Sewanee softball. Hoping to achieve a 13-win streak ending the season on a high note, the Tigers believe regardless of the seed they enter in at the conference championship, they will shock everyone and make a run to win their first conference championship in school history.