91ÊÓƵÎÛÎÛ Tech Softball Wins Fourth Straight Region Championship Tournament
May 30, 2024
The 91ÊÓƵÎÛÎÛ Tech softball team headed into the spring 2024 season as the three-time defending region champion, traveling to Mercer County Community College on May 3 – 4 to defend their title as the No. 2 seed. And that is exactly what they did. For the fourth year in a row, 91ÊÓƵÎÛÎÛ Technical Community College’s softball team is the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region 19 softball champion.
Also, Head Coach Guy Wilkins was named the NJCAA Region 19 Coach of the Year for the fourth consecutive year. He knew this year would be different after losing 12 players from last year’s team, but he said, “this group of student athletes formed a special team, which earned them a special season. They got along on and off the field, and this really helped the outcome of the season.”
In four games at the NJCAA Region 19 Division II Tournament, 91ÊÓƵÎÛÎÛ Tech collected wins over Lackawanna College (6-5) and Salem Community College (9-3). With these two wins, the team advanced to the first championship game before being defeated by Mercer County Community College (MCCC), 13-6. However, the team bounced back in the championship final with an 11-9 win in extra innings over MCCC to win the championship.
“I was pleasantly surprised with how this team excelled in so many ways,” Wilkins said. “I knew we had a lot of speed, and we were able to use that speed to generate a lot of doubles and triples.”
“On the mound, Kinley Elliot and Kameron Sockriter elevated their level of pitching to exactly what we needed defensively,” he said. Elliot ended the season with 12 wins while Sockriter had 13 wins. Offensively, the team hit 38 homeruns during the season.
Ally Marly and Makenzie Whaley earned first team NJCAA Region 19 All-Region, and Zoey Coco, Brooklyn Richardson, and Sockriter earned second team.
