by Matt Cooke
Exciting is almost not a good enough word to describe what I have been able to witness with the UWG softball squad so far this year.
For starters, your Wolves are 11-5 so far this season and are playing as well as I have seen them play in nearly 10 years. Of those 11 wins, two came in the opening weekend of Gulf South Conference softball against Alabama Huntsville, a team that had beaten UWG 24 straight times before these games. If you haven’t kept up with GSC softball, Huntsville has been a regular both as a conference champion and at the Division II softball College World Series.
But the most exciting part of the season so far has been the way that West Georgia softball has risen up in late innings. In one of those two victories over Alabama Huntsville, senior Nicole Yancey, who is one of the top hitters in Division II softball, belted a three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh for a walk-off home run.
Yancey alone has had five games this year where she has had either the game-winning hit or scored the game-winning run for the Wolves in the final inning. Eleven of the 16 games this season so far have been decided by two runs or less, which might not be great for the heart, but it makes for an exciting brand of softball at University Field.
The most beautiful part of all of this is that it’s only February. This season goes through the middle of May. If there is this much excitement this early in the season, it could be a great end to the UWG Athletic year. If nothing else, you could come out and get a chance to see a player in Yancey who is going to finish her career at UWG this year as one of the most decorated players in school history.
It’s going to be a fun ride this year, and if you join us at the UWG Athletic Complex, you could be a part of the excitement as well.
Matt Cooke is the assistant sports information director and athletic events coordinator.
