The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ole Miss
UAB
Trachsel Era Commences as Softball Travels to Troy
2/11/2021 | Softball
Rebels Kick Off 2021 Season at Trojan Classic
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TROJAN CLASSIC Feb. 12-14 Troy, Ala. Troy Softball Complex |
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| Ole Miss Notes (PDF) • Troy Notes (PDF) • UAB Notes (PDF) Tournament Info |
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| Friday, Feb. 12 UAB | Troy 10 a.m. | 11:30 a.m. |
Saturday, Feb. 13 Belmont | UAB 11:30 a.m. | 4:30 p.m. |
Sunday, Feb. 14 TBD TBD |
| Game One: Live Stats Game Two: Live Stats |
Game One: Live Stats Game Two: Live Stats |
Live Stats |
LEADING OFF
• Ole Miss softball enters its 25th season at the Trojan Classic, taking on a five-game slate against host Troy in addition to Belmont, Chattanooga and UAB.
• Friday's opener against UAB will be the first Rebel game of head coach Jamie Trachsel's career. Trachsel was hired as the sixth head coach in Ole Miss history on April 24, 2020.
• Ole Miss will begin the first 10 games of the season on the road before hosting Alabama State in the home-opener on Feb. 23.
• Mikayla Allee, Autumn Gillespie, Jessica Puk and Sydney Gutierrez all batted over .300 in 2020. It was the first time Ole Miss had at least four players finish a season above the .300 line since 2016, when Hailey Lunderman, Elantra Cox, Miranda Strother and Ashton Lampton accomplished the feat.
• Ole Miss finished the 2020 season with seven-straight wins in non-conference play, finishing the campaign with a 12-10 record in non-league action.
• The Rebels return to Troy, Alabama, for the first time since the 2018 season. Ole Miss played a pair of neutral site games at the Troy Softball Complex, topping Murray State and Tennessee Tech by respective scores of 4-2 and 12-2 (5).
• After starting the season without a home run in any of the first 10 games of 2020, Ole Miss posted at least one big fly in 11 of the final 15 games of the season, including a run of seven-straight games with a home run to tie the program record. Autumn Gillespie and Abbey Latham paced the Rebs with five homers apiece.
• With Anna Borgen, Savannah Diederich and Ava Tillmann back in the fold, Ole Miss returns 3-of-4 pitchers who pitched at least 25 innings in 2020.
SCOUTING REPORT
UAB
The Blazers are in their first season under head coach Joe Guthrie, who has served as the team's associate head coach since January 2020 and an assistant since 2018. Working primarily with the defense, he helped UAB lead Conference USA in chances and putouts while ranking 11th nationally with 0.52 double plays per game before the 2020 season was cut short.
Picked to finish second in the C-USA West Division, the Blazers are led by catcher Sierra Frazier. The sophomore returns the highest batting average on the team after hitting .329 and slugging .610 to go along with 24 RBIs and 14 extra-base hits a year ago. Also in the green and gold is former Rebel Taylor Watford, who played with Ole Miss from 2019-20.
Troy
Leading the Trojans is Beth Mullins in her seventh season at Troy. Mullins got her team off and running with a 17-6 record, highlighted by a win over No. 16 South Carolina in 2020 before the season was cut short. Heading into the 2021 season, the Trojans were picked to finish second in the Sun Belt Preseason Coaches' Poll and placed four athletes on the preseason all-conference team.
Offensively, Troy is led by All-Sun Belt first basemen Katie Webb along with senior infielder Kelly Horne. The two were tied with a .368 batting average last season, while Webb recorded a team-leading 25 hits and had eight multi-hit games. On the rubber, the Trojans are led by ace and reigning Sun Belt Freshman of the Year Leanna Johnson, who led the conference in seven of the 11 major pitching categories, including strikeouts (137), shutouts (7), wins (11) and opposing batting average (.153).
Belmont
Laura Matthews leads the Bruins in her first year under the helm. Matthews became the 13th head softball coach in program history after holding a similar position at Wright State since 2017. With the Raiders in 2020, she helped the team lead the conference in batting average, home runs and slugging percentage. Belmont was picked to finish 10th in the Ohio Valley Conference preseason poll after posting a 5-14 record a year ago.
Among those to keep an eye on is senior Alicia Veltri, who was tabbed one of 12 players to watch for the upcoming season by the OVC. Returning from an injury that sidelined her during the 2020 season, Veltri returns to the circle, where she led Belmont with 15 wins, 148.0 innings pitched and four shutouts in 2019.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
The Ole Miss Softball Complex has been a place of comfort for the Rebels in non-conference clashes in recent years. With a perfect 8-0 record at home in 2020, Ole Miss has won 33-of-38 games in Oxford in the last two seasons. The Rebs have not lost back-to-back home contests since dropping both ends of a doubleheader to No. 23 Mississippi State on April 15, 2018.
Outside of SEC play, the Rebels have been nothing short of dominant when playing in front of its home crowd. Ole Miss has won 27-straight non-conference regular season home games in a row, having not fallen to a non-SEC team in Oxford during the regular season since a 5-0 defeat to Boston College in 2018. Dating back to 2019, when Ole Miss went 13-0 at home in non-conference play, the Rebels have outscored their opponents 149-25 on home soil in non-league action.
FINISHING FLURRY
Entering what was supposed to be her fifth and final collegiate season overall, Autumn Gillespie was a .257 career hitter with a .332 on-base percentage and a slugging percentage of .400. However, during the 2020 season the Rebel back stop put her best foot forward and emerged as one of the most feared bats in the SEC. Gillespie averaged .349 for the season, drawing the fourth-most walks in the league to finish with an OBP of .512, while adding pop to the lineup with a .651 slugging percentage. In just 25 games, Gillespie registered 32.8% of the runs, 50.0% of the walks and 45.5% of the home runs she had tallied in her first four collegiate seasons combined. The six-foot tall catcher also emerged as a threat on the bases. Having stolen just twice in her first three seasons, Gillespie has swiped 18 bags the last two years, successfully stealing on 91% of attempts for her career.
SWITCH FLIPPED
Through the first 30 games of her career, sophomore Mikayla Allee had registered just four hits, coming in at a batting average of .085. In the proceeding 55 games, the Rebel shortstop posted a .348 average at the plate. Almost more impressive was the Corona, California, native's ability to get on base during that time. Through the first 30 games of her freshman season, Allee's OBP was .297, still respectable considering her meager hits total. Over the last 55 games, however, you could pretty much flip a coin as Allee reached base 49.7 percent of the time.
ON A ROLL
For Iowa native Jessica Puk, the softball park was a field of dreams in the final games of 2020. At the time the campaign was halted, Puk was in the midst of a 13-game reached base streak, tied for the longest of her career and the longest at Ole Miss since Kylan Becker's 20-game streak in 2019. During the 13-game streak, Puk batted .429 with three doubles, three home runs, 12 RBIs, eight runs scored and a .511 OBP. Over the final five games Puk dialed it up to 11, reaching in two-thirds of her plate appearances with a .583 average and five runs driven in.
WHO YOU CALLING HOKIE?
Among the new faces in the Ole Miss lineup is utility player Maddi Banks, a transfer from Virginia Tech. The Iowa native is expected to make an immediate impact, earning D1Softball's SEC Preseason Newcomer of the Year laurel. In her two seasons in Blacksburg, Banks played in 75 total games among various positions. After establishing herself as a regular contributor as a freshman, Banks broke out in 2020. The junior started 22 games for VT, ranking fifth on the team with a .340 average while posting a .581 slugging percentage with three doubles, a triple and a pair of home runs.
VERTERAN GROUP
Thanks in part to the extra year of eligibility allowed by the NCAA due to the 2020 season being cut short, Ole Miss returns one of if not the most experienced lineup in the SEC. Ole Miss boasts a roster of 12 seniors, including three players entering their fifth collegiate season and one player entering her sixth. Arkansas is the only other team in the conference with 12 players who are in at least their fourth season at the collegiate level.
The Rebels return five players with more than 100 games of experience (Gabby Alvarez, Autumn Gillespie, Abbey Latham, Jessica Puk, Amanda Roth), including three with greater than 100 starts (Gillespie, Latham, Roth). Entering her sixth season, Gillespie leads the way, cracking the starting lineup in 180 of her 185 appearances at the collegiate level. From top to bottom the Rebels boast experience, with 10 of the 23 players who play a position in the field having made at least 75 appearances in their career.
With every every-day player returning to the field for the Rebels in 2021, Ole Miss returns nearly all of its production in every offensive category, including at-bats (98.1%), runs (94.6%), hits (99.4%), RBIs (97.9%), doubles (100%), triples (100%), home runs (100%), walks (98.9% and stolen bases (100%). With four of six pitchers returning in the circle, Ole Miss returns a bulk of its production in appearances (71.4%), starts (56.0%), innings (56.2%) and strikeouts (51.9%).
RUN AT YOUR OWN RISK
Since joining Ole Miss ahead of the 2018 season, senior catcher Autumn Gillespie has struck fear in the eyes of opposing base stealers. Over the past three seasons Gillespie's 26 runners caught stealing has been topped by just two active SEC players (Mississippi State's Mia Davidson - 28, Missouri's Hatti Moore - 27). However, Gillespie has been far more efficient with controlling the run game than the two aforementioned players, with the California native throwing out 37.7 percent of would be base stealers, compared to 32.1 percent for Moore and 28.9 percent for Davidson. In fact, since Gillespie entered the league in 2018, no catcher with at least 25 runners caught stealing has gunned down a higher percentage of runners.
BALL MAGNET
Over the past two seasons, nobody on the Rebel roster has been more consistently on base than junior Mikayla Allee, having posted a .445 on-base percentage in her collegiate career. One of the key contributing factors to this is the Corona, California, natives uncanny ability to draw HBPs. Despite having played just 85 total games in less than two full seasons, Allee has been hit by 21 pitches in her career, already ranking fifth all-time at Ole Miss. Utilizing another year of experience, senior Autumn Gillespie has also shown a knack for reaching base by being plunked, sitting just ahead of Allee with 22 HBPs in a Rebel uniform.
ROOKIES IN THE RANKINGS
In addition to having nearly the entire 2020 roster returning, Ole Miss bolstered its lineup with a talented group of six true freshmen. Included in that crew are a pair of rookies who were ranked in FloSoftball's Hot 100 Rankings in infielder Blaise Biringer and Aynslie Furbush, who plays both in the field and in the circle.
A middle infielder from Nogales, Arizona, Biringer was tabbed as the No. 59 incoming freshman in the nation by FloSoftball. Biringer helped lead Cienega High School to a pair of state championships, earning all-state laurels three times, including back-to-back first team nods in 2018 and 2019.
In addition to being ranked No. 85 in FloSoftball's class of 2020 Hot 100, Furbush was also slotted as the No. 16 rookie in the nation in Softball America's Top-25 Freshmen list. A 2018-19 Florida State Champion with Winter Springs High School, Furbush garnered Junior All-American laurels from MaxPreps and was also tabbed as the FACA 8A Player of the Year in 2019.
GO TEACH
In support of The College Football Playoff (CFP) Foundation's "Go Teach" initiative, Ole Miss senior pitcher Lindsey Johnson was among a group of more than 60 student-athletes across the country to be awarded with a $2,500 scholarship in support of her pursuit of an elementary education degree. Johnson is one of 12 SEC athletes and one of just two conference softball players to receive the scholarship.
A NEW ERA
A new era of Ole Miss softball begins in 2021, with Jamie Trachsel being named the sixth head coach in program history on April 24, 2020. Trachsel brings 18 years of coaching experience to Oxford, including 10 as head coach at successful programs in Minnesota, Iowa State and North Dakota State.
In her 10 seasons as a head coach, Trachsel has guided her teams to the postseason seven times. The Duluth, Minnesota, native has steered her teams to 11 conference regular season and tournament championships, coaching 47 all-league players along the way. Trachsel's crowning achievement came in 2019, earning NFCA Great Lakes Coach of the Year honors after taking the Golden Gophers to the program's first-ever Women's College World Series.
A familiar face in Oxford, former Rebel volunteer assistant coach Katie Rietkovich Browder returns to Ole Miss after spending two years on Trachsel's Minnesota staff. In addition to helping the Golden Gophers in their run to the WCWS, Rietkovich Browder was a key piece in Ole Miss' 2017 SEC Tournament Championship and trip to Super Regionals. Reitkovich Browder was also crucial in the development of the Rebels' corps of slappers, including the likes of Kylan Becker and Elantra Cox.
Former United States Junior Men's National Team member Ryker Chason is in his first season as Ole Miss' pitching coach. Prior to making the move to Oxford, Chason spent four seasons as a student at LSU, assisting Tiger head coach Beth Torina with pitching charts and pitch calls. During his time in Baton Rouge, Chason worked with a plethora of top-end talent, including All-Americans Carley Hoover and Allie Walljasper. While at LSU, Chason also served as the pitching coach for the nationally renowned Georgia Impact Premier Club travel ball team in Atlanta.
Rounding out the new faces on the pitching staff is former Elon standout Kara Shutt. Shutt spent the past two seasons as a graduate assistant at fellow SEC foe South Carolina. During her playing career, Shutt put together one of the finest careers in the history of Elon softball, setting the Phoenix' all-time record for career doubles with 63, while ranking second in school history with 253 career hits. Shutt also filled up her mantel with plenty of awards, earning a trio of All-CAA and NFCA All-Region awards apiece.
For all Ole Miss softball news and information, go to OleMissSports.com and follow the Rebels on Twitter at @OleMissSoftball, on Facebook at Ole Miss Softball and on Instagram at Instagram.com/olemisssoftball. Also, follow head coach Jamie Trachsel on Twitter at @Jamie_Trachsel.
