SUWANEE, Ga. – In exclusive voting by the league’s head coaches, Texas Lutheran once again emerged as the preseason favorite to take home the 2024 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Softball crown.
The conference is coming off a banner year that saw two teams make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2010 and multiple programs winning 30-plus games for the first time since 2019.
Texas Lutheran, who secured 40 or more wins for the second consecutive season and fourth time since 2016 – highlighted by the program’s ninth SCAC regular season title – earned seven first-place votes to finish atop the preseason poll with 63 points. St. Thomas, coming off its first-ever SCAC Tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance after establishing a program record for single-season wins with 33, received the final first-place vote and finished second in the preseason rankings with 54 total points. After securing its first 20-plus win season and winning an SCAC Tournament game for the first time since 2019, Southwestern earned 42 points and was selected third by the coaches. Trinity, which will be led by first-year head coach Bailey Wittenauer, was the coaches’ fourth selection with 41 points after posting its third consecutive double-digit conference win total for the first time since the 2014-16 seasons. Centenary, one of just two league programs to win at least one SCAC Tournament game in the last five tournaments, rounds out the top five with 32 total points.
Rounding out the coaches’ selections were Schreiner, which is looking to qualify for its 10th-straight SCAC Tournament, with 29 points, Austin College with 17 points and Dallas in eighth with 10 points.
TLU returns four batters that recorded 45 or more hits out of a lineup that finished with 400 or more hits for the second-straight season for the first time since the 2015-2016 seasons. Sophomore Caelee Clark, defending SCAC Player-of-the-Year, and sophomore Serena Gonzalez, last year’s SCAC Newcomer-of-the-Year, along with First Team All-SCAC shortstop junior Linzee Leal and Second Team All-SCAC outfielder senior Madison Johnson, combined for 212 hits and a .398 batting average. The quartet also accounted for 134 of the Bulldogs’ 268 runs driven in, 170-of-329 runs scored, 29-of-58 doubles and 114 of a league-leading 181 stolen bases.
In the circle, senior Ashlyn Strother, the three-time reigning SCAC Pitcher-of-the-Year and three-time NFCA All-American teams, up with three-time All-SCAC performer Sydney Ouellette to create a dynamic duo in the circle. Strother and Ouellette combined for an impressive 27-4 record, with 147 strikeouts, 20 complete games and a 1.00 ERA in 202.2 innings pitched a season ago.
Leading Texas Lutheran from the dugout will be Wade Wilson who enters his 12th year as head coach. He has posted a 422-87 (.829) mark at TLU after leading the Bulldogs to a 40-8 record a year ago and the program’s ninth-straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. Wilson has guided Texas Lutheran to eight SCAC Tournament titles, earned eight SCAC Coach-of-the-Year accolades and added NFCA Division III National Coaching Staff of the Year to his resume following TLU’s run to the National Championship in 2019.
Since the SCAC began sponsoring softball as a championship sport in 1999, eight different teams have claimed conference championships. Texas Lutheran (2014-19, 2021-22) leads the way with eight followed by Trinity (1999, 2000-02, 2005-07) with seven. DePauw University captured three (2008-09, 2011), Southwestern two (2010, 2013) and Millsaps College (2003), University of the South-Sewanee (2004), Birmingham-Southern College (2011) and University of St. Thomas (2023) have each secured one title.
The 2024 SCAC softball season begins on February 2nd, while the first conference series of the season are scheduled for Saturday, March 9th. The 2024 SCAC Softball Tournament will be held at the beginning of May on the campus of Texas Lutheran University as the double-elimination tournament will begin on Friday May 3rd .
| 2024 SCAC Softball Preseason Coaches' Poll (first-place votes in parentheses, followed by total points) |
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| 1. | Texas Lutheran University (7) | 63 |
| 2. | University of St. Thomas (1) | 54 |
| 3. | Southwestern University | 42 |
| 4. | Trinity University | 41 |
| 5. | Centenary College | 32 |
| 6. | Schreiner University | 29 |
| 7. | Austin College | 17 |
| 8. | University of Dallas | 10 |
