Katie Rietkovich Browder - Softball Coach - Ole Miss Athletics

Katie Rietkovich Browder

Title:
Assistant Coach
Year at Ole Miss:
Sixth
E-mail:
softball@olemiss.edu
Phone:
662-915-7186
Alma Mater:
USC-Beaufort (2014), Georgia Southern (2016)

Katie Rietkovich Browder completed her third season on Jamie Trachsel's staff at Ole Miss, serving as an assistant coach in charge of leading the Rebel offense. Previously, Rietkovich Browder was a volunteer assistant coach at Ole Miss from 2016-18.

During the 2023 season, Rietkovich Browder helped the Rebels break the single-season home run record with 49 bombs on the year. Mya Stevenson, the NCAA Active Leader in Career Home runs smashed 13, followed by Paige Smith, who crushed 10, moving into fourth all-time in program history. Keila Kamoku added eight bombs, and Aynslie Furbush hit six, both single-season highs.

Rietkovich Browder guided the team to a .272 mark at the plate with 420 hits, including 77 doubles (fourth in the SEC), 12 triples (fifth in the SEC) and 49 homers (eighth in the SEC), while slugging .432 and recording a .355 on-base percentage. For the third straight season, Tate Whitley led the team offensively. She finished with a .315 average. Sophomore Lexie Brady had a breakout season offensively, batting .312. Freshman Jalia Lassiter had a strong start to her collegiate career, earning NFCA All-South Region honors and tying for the team lead with 48 hits, including five triples. Fifth-year senior Savana Sikes had one of the best seasons of her career, batting .284 with 48 hits. Mikayla Allee also had the best offensive season of her five-year career, posting a .288 average (third on the team) and 46 hits (18 more than her single-season high). A pair of seniors in Mya Stevenson and Tate Whitley each registered their 200th career hits, making Ole Miss one of nine Division I teams with two active players with 200 career hits. Further, Stevenson registered her 200th career RBI, becoming one of six active players to have 200 hits and 200 RBI.

The 2022 campaign saw the Rebels post a .284 batting average led by a trio of outfielders. Browder guided senior outfielder Tate Whitley to the third most hits in a single season in Ole Miss history while batting .387. She also led the SEC the entire regular season in hits. Abbey Latham also saw one of her best offensive seasons in Oxford, totaling 46 RBIs and breaking the program record along the way with 167 in her Ole Miss career. Graduate transfer Bre Roper also was a major piece of the Rebels’ offense, batting .364 with 64 hits, 14 doubles, 39 runs scored 37 RBIs and 37 walks. All three individuals earned NFCA All-Region honors.

As a team, Ole Miss showed patience at the plate, ranking tenth nationally with 216 walks leading to a .389 on-base percentage. Overall, Browder and the Rebels turned in top-five numbers all-time in hits (433), doubles (84), home runs (45), slugging percentage (.439), RBIs (286), runs (313) and walks (216).

Under Rietkovich Browder's direction, Ole Miss posted a .290 team batting average in 2021, the highest average for the Rebels since 2017 and good for a tie for fifth highest in the SEC. With Rietkovich Browder back in the fold, Ole Miss experienced one of its best offensive years ever, ranking in the top-5 all-time in batting average, slugging percentage (.431), on-base percentage (.393), runs (282), hits (427), home runs (44), RBIs (256), walks (184) and HBPs (80).

During her first stint in Oxford, the former Georgia Bulldog was pivotal in the establishment of Ole Miss as a standard for the slap-style of hitting, perfecting the craft of standout Rebel slappers like Kylan Becker, Elantra Cox and Paige McKinney. During Ole Miss’ historic 2017 season, more than a quarter of the Rebels’ hits never left the infield.

Rietkovich Browder also worked closely with the Rebel catchers during her initial stint at Ole Miss, including Courtney Syrett and Autumn Gillespie. Syrett ranked second in the SEC in 2017 with six runners thrown out, committing just two errors on the season. Meanwhile, since arriving in Oxford, Gillespie has been one of the most feared arms behind the plate in the nation.

Following the 2018 season, Rietkovich Browder was hired by Trachsel as an assistant coach at Minnesota, immediately making an impact and helping the Gophers to a magical run to the Women’s College World Series in her first season. In recognition of their success, Rietkovich Browder and the rest of the Minnesota coaches were named the 2019 NFCA Great Lakes Region Coaching Staff of the Year.

Rietkovich Browder’s Minnesota offense left their mark in the Golden Gopher record book during her lone complete season in Minneapolis, ranking second all-time in home runs (72), third in walks (225), fifth in doubles (87) and fifth in slugging percentage (.496). The Savannah, Georgia, native developed three First Team All-Big Ten honorees in Hope Brandner, MaKenna Partain and Natalie DenHartog.

Partain flourished in the leadoff spot under Rietkovich, breaking the school single season runs record with 66 and single game runs record with five in a game. Meanwhile, Brandner, a transfer from Oregon State, finished second all-time in single season home runs, crushing 19.

Rietkovich Browder’s most impressive work may have been the job she did coaching freshman DenHartog. After not beginning the year as a starter, DenHartog led the Gophers in slugging percentage (.780) and RBIs (64) and was second on the team in batting average (.373) and home runs (17). DenHartog was named a top-3 finalist for the NFCA Freshman of the Year award. The slugger went on to lead the Gophers in virtually every category in the shortened 2020 season and earned Softball America Shortened Season All-American honors.

Rietkovich Browder got her start in coaching at Savannah State, where she served for one year under head coach Jose Gonzalez as an assistant.

Rietkovich Browder made a few stops during her playing career, starting at Georgia under head coach Lu Harris-Champer, where she was a part of the Bulldogs’ third-place finish at the 2010 Women's College World Series. After her stint at Georgia, she played at the NAIA level at both South Carolina-Beaufort and Reinhardt University. In addition to her WCWS trip, she was a part of trips to two NCAA Regionals, two NCAA Super Regionals and an NAIA postseason run.

Rietkovich Browder earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management from USCB in December 2014. She completed her Master’s Degree in Kinesiology from Georgia Southern in July 2016.