Mountaineer Softball Team

Bobb Johnston
(Press Release 5-15-06)

Eastern Softball Team Going To NJCAA National Tournament

62-8, think about those numbers for a minute. Eastern Oklahoma State College softball team amassed a record this season of 62-8 and are not through yet.

The Lady Mountaineers will play May 18-20 in the NJCAA National Tournament in Plant City, FL with the chance to improve their record.

Before this season Eastern had never won a regular season tournament, only three Regional titles, ‘97, ‘98 and ‘05.

The first tournament of the season, the Cowtown Classic was cancelled after one day of play with Eastern undefeated and no winner declared. Next came the Eastern Spring Classic in McAlester. Eastern downed Connors 10-2 to win the championship.

NEO fell victim in the next tournament, the Midwest JUCO Classic in Broken Arrow. NEO also met with defeat in the semi-finals on the Seminole Tournament as Eastern advanced to beat Northern 3-2 in the finals.

The last tournament, the Region II Championship at Hall of Fame in OKC saw the Lady Mountaineers take a different road but the same result. Eastern lost to Northern in the semi-finals but came back through the loser’s bracket and upended Northern twice on Sunday to earn their second straight trip to National.

Last season Eastern was put in the loser’s bracket at Nationals by eventual National Champions Central Arizona 1-0 and finished 7th.

Numbers are something that has become familiar to these young women.

Twenty-one school records have fallen this season, most impressively, the record for shutouts. The old record that stood at 21 was shattered with Eastern blanking their opponents an astounding 41 times in 70 games.

Pitching and a sound defense complemented each other during most games.

The pitching staff of Karla Pittman and Marge Johnson effectively neutralized the opposition. Johnson is ranked #1 in the nation in strikeouts with 447, seven shy of the All-Time NJCAA record, and Pittman follows closely at #5 with 214 strikeout’s.

Johnson is currently #1 All-Time in strikeouts per inning at 1.94 and second in ERA at 0.183. Pittman’s ERA of 0.642 ranks 7th nationally.

Pittman set the school record for wins last season going 30-12 and is currently 30-6 this year but saw the record fall as Johnson has gone 32-2 in the circle this season.

The offense has carried it’s weight this year also. The Homerun records were eclipsed this year both as a team and individually. Johnson has 18, ranked 3rd nationally, and Ashley Graham smashed 8. Lesley Boyd, Jaclyn Mullaney and Kasey Kimbrough have each clubbed six.

Most of the latter part of the season Johnson didn’t get any pitches to hit and drew a school record 47 walks. Johnson also shares the new school record for runs scored with Laney Anderson at 57.

This will be Eastern’s fourth appearance in the National Tournament, having been in 1997, 1998 and 2005. All four trips have been under the guidance of head coach Andy Mace.

Mace has amassed a 404-175 record in college softball and a 1283-546 coaching record at the high school and college level in softball, basketball and baseball.

The team will be leaving Monday afternoon for Florida. They practice Wednesday morning and have the National Banquet on Wednesday night, as well as the coaches meeting following the banquet.

Game action begins on Thursday with Eastern earning the #7 seed and taking on Blinn College, TX at 11:00 a.m. Blinn is the #10 seed with a record of 39-20.

The Eastern-Blinn winner will face off at 6:00 p.m. with the winner of #5 Otero, CO, 50-8, and #12 Jefferson, MO 48-14. The losers of these sets of games will play at 6:00 p.m. also.

Eastern has the #2 and #4 seeded teams, Indian River, (54-10) and Pima (55-10) on their half of the bracke

Temple, TX (52-3) is the #1 seed and the #1 ranked team in the final NJCAA poll. The #2, 3, 6, 8, 9 and 11 teams in the polls were all eliminated in their regional. Eastern is the 7th highest ranked team in the field at #13. Only eight teams ranked in the top 20 made the tournament. You must win your regional or district to qualify, no at large bids are extended. Eastern’s region is large enough to not have a district playoff. There are five teams that received votes but didn’t make the top twenty that got in and three teams that were not in the final rankings.

A big Thank You goes out to all the individuals and businesses that have contributed to make this trip possible.