Ladies Picked To Finish Seventh In 2025 SCAC Preseason Softball Poll

SUWANEE, Ga. -- In exclusive voting by the league's head coaches, Texas Lutheran was selected to repeat as the preseason favorite to take home the 2025 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Softball crown.

Entering the 2025 season, the SCAC will feature 11 squads, the most since the 2009 season.

Texas Lutheran, who secured the program's 10th SCAC Regular Season Crown a season ago, earned nine first-place votes to finish atop the preseason poll with 119 points. Trinity, coming off a program record 31 wins and a runner-up finish at the SCAC Tournament, received one first-place vote and finished second in the preseason rankings with 107 total points. McMurry, which enters its first year of competition in the SCAC and secured a 10-3 record against current SCAC foes last season, received the final first-place vote to finish third in the preseason balloting with 96 points. St. Thomas, who is one of just two SCAC teams to secure 20 or more wins in each of the last four seasons, was picked fourth by the league coaches with 87 points. SCAC debutant Concordia, coming off its first American Southwest Conference Tournament Title appearance since 2000 last year, rounds out the top five with 77 points.

Southwestern, which has secured double-digit SCAC wins in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2016-2017, was slotted in sixth with 70 points.  Centenary, having made eight consecutive SCAC Tournament appearances, finished with 48 total points to sit seventh on the preseason poll. After returning to the SCAC Tournament for the first time since 2016 and posting its most wins in the SCAC era (2007-present) with 18, Austin College was picked eighth with 45 points.

Rounding out the coaches' selections were Schreiner, which welcomes in first-year head coach Meghan Christensen, with 35 points in ninth, Ozarks making its SCAC debut in 10th with 26 points and Dallas, who also ushers in a new coach in Eric Oakley, finished 11th with 16 points.

Texas Lutheran returns 19 players for the 2025 season, including 2024 First Team All-American Caelee Clark, Rawlings Gold Glovers, Annie Kay and Linzee Leal, and NFCA All-Region designated player Kylee Jack.

TLU made its tenth consecutive trip to the NCAA Division-III Softball Tournament in program history and ninth straight Regional Championship appearance last season while claiming their tenth straight SCAC Regular Season Championship and ninth SCAC Tournament Championship Title.  As a team, the 2024 TLU softball team once again set a new NCAA Division-III record for stolen bases with 233 on the season, surpassing their previous record of 231 set in 2022, and ranked in the top ten in fielding percentage, on-base percentage, and win-loss percentage.

Leading Texas Lutheran from the dugout will be Wade Wilson who enters his 13th year as head coach. He has posted a 455-92 (.832) mark at TLU after leading the Bulldogs to a 33-5 record a year ago. Wilson has guided Texas Lutheran to nine 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, 2024) leads the way with nine 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 2025 SCAC softball season begins on January 31st, while the first conference series of the season are scheduled for Friday, February 14th. The 2025 SCAC Softball Tournament will be held at the beginning of May on the campus of Southwestern University as the double-elimination tournament will begin on Friday May 2nd.