Recap of Saluki Softball Fall Ball season

The Southern Illinois softball team wrapped up its 2022 fall season in mid-October with an 8-0 record against area college. For SIU, it was the first taste of action under the leadership of Jen Sewell, who was named the program's third head coach after longtime coach Kerri Blaylock announced her retirement last spring.

Sewell, who served as an assistant for Blaylock the previous 14 seasons, was humbled by the opportunity to take over as head coach.

"Being the head coach here is an incredible honor and I will never take that for granted. I still get up in the mornings and am wowed to be only the third head coach of this program," she noted. "Every time I was announced as head coach, I got the chills. That will never go away for me. And to look over at this incredible staff we have assembled, that part really blows my mind. We have a DII national champion, a 20-game winner who also led her conference in batting average, and a women's World Series two-time participant and national runner-up. That covers it in terms of what our players need to be around and be coached by."

On the field in the fall, Sewell was impressed by the team's performance.

"We learned a lot about ourselves this fall," she said. "We are half-veteran and half-newcomer, so it was important to get everyone time on the field and at-bats. I was probably most impressed with our chemistry because of our newness to each other. It is really hard for teams to establish chemistry that quickly.

Sewell continued: "The coaching staff just sat back and really took notes on this team. We've really wanted to find the little details we need to get better at and let them compete together."

The Salukis will be a younger team this season, but still bring back several key returners from last season's team, in addition to a mix of new contributors.

"Rylie Hamilton and Liz Warwick are no-brainers in the spring. We will go as they go. Included in that headlining group is Madi Eberle, she is going to get the ball a lot after pitching through an injury last season. Chloe Scroggins had a huge breakout fall season, so I'm also excited to see her more. Addi Baker will return from a season-ending injury last year and she's a key cog in our wheel as far as the middle of the lineup. If we want to be really good we will need Emma Austin, Bayley Caylor, and Aub DePron to be consistently good for us. We will ask a lot of those three this season."

"I'm also going to push on Tori, KG, and Emma Anthony, and Jenna to dent the lineup a lot more. I need to be able to flip the lineup and use lefty and righty heavy bats during certain series," Sewell added.

Sewell believes the youthful Salukis will still be prime contenders in the spring season, saying, "This team will go as far as the pitching can go, and if we are healthy, then the sky's the limit. Are we young? Yes we are, but youth doesn't scare us. Lis, Carder, Stinson, Lee, and Wilkerson showed in the fall that they are physically and mentally ready for big-time games. Talent-wise it's a no-brainer."

A challenging 2023 schedule is set to be released in the coming weeks.

"We have laid out a very tough schedule in February to set us up to compete at the end of the year in the postseason," Sewell said. "The key to us will be to pitch well and play defense behind the mound. On offense, we may look a little different in how we score runs but if we keep our strikeouts down we will be very good. Youth is exciting, they rev up practices and they compete hard. Combine that youth with gritty veterans and we can scrap the 'you know what' out of opposing teams. It's been the most fun I've had in a long time."

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Players Mentioned

Emma Anthony

Emma Austin

Addi Baker

Madi Eberle

Rylie Hamilton

Chloe Scroggins

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