Published: May 15, 2008 12:49 am            

COLLEGE SOFTBALL: IU Southeast headed to nationals in second season

So much for the whole idea of a sophomore slump.

After a strong debut season on the softball diamond a year ago, when Indiana University Southeast was able to bring home the 2007 Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship, there was no sign of a letdown in season two of the program.

Instead, the Grenadiers not only matched its feat of a conference tournament title this season, they have gone a step further.

Last weekend, IU Southeast claimed the 2008 NAIA Region XII Tournament Championship on its home field and earned its first-ever berth in the national tournament.

“It would have been tough to imagine it happening when I transferred here last year,” said senior outfielder Carmen Davis. “You don’t really know something like it can happen when a program is just getting started like we were.”

Coach Todd Buckingham had few doubts about the program’s quick ascension to the top. And Davis was part of the reason why.

“When I got here, we had three girls transfer in from other schools because they wanted to play closer to home and be a part of this new program,” said Buckingham, the 2008 Region XII and KIAC Coach of the Year. “With a lot of programs starting up, you’re starting nine freshman and have an entire roster loaded with inexperience. The fact we had three players that came in with experience and wanted to play got us off to a quick start.”

Centerfielder Davis (Palm Beach Atlantic), catcher SaraRose Hornung (Bellarmine) and Amanda Dispennett (who pitched for Buckingham at Bluefield State University) all joined the Grenadiers for last year’s inagural campaign. Dispennett pitched only one season but was named KIAC Pitcher of the Year and now serves as an assistant coach on Buckingham’s staff.

“We brought in experience at three positions right up the middle,” Buckingham said. “That’s a huge start.”

Step two in building the program into an immediate winner was Buckingham’s relentless recruiting of IUS’ home turf.

A Corydon native himself, Buckingham has eight of the 17 spots on his roster filled with players from Jeffersonville, Charlestown, Providence, New Albany or Floyd Central.

“This area is known as a hotbed for high school programs,” he said. “Floyd Central, New Albany, Jeffersonville, Clarksville, Providence, Charlestown — all of those schools produce quality players. Giving them a school close to home to play at and continue their careers, and even giving players who had gone to college someplace else and wanted to return home and play, it’s a leg up for the program.”

Those were just two big factors in IUS almost immediately building itself into a winner. The 2007 version of the Grenadiers won 25 games in their first season, which included a 14-6 mark in the KIAC.

That win total grew to 33 this season — including 14 wins in the season’s final 16 games. After rolling through the conference tournament, IUS drew a No. 4 seed at regional, but then proceeded to knock off top-seeded Milligan and second-seeded Virginia-Wise on its way to the title.

Buckingham knew his team was up to challenge, though — he found out nearly midway through the regular season.

“I saw about all I needed to know about this team during a road trip to Lindsey Wilson,” Buckingham said about the April 2 journey. “We went there against a team that was nearly ranked at the time and just got clobbered in the first game before bouncing right back getting a win in the next game.

“It spoke a lot to me about the team we had. We had been challenged really for the first time and we handled ourselves the way any good team would.”

The next challenge lies at this weekend’s nationals, where IUS will begin pool play on Friday against California Baptist. The Grenadiers are seeded 20th among the 20 teams in the tournament and are the only unranked team among the four in their respective pool.

California Baptist is a squad with more than 50 wins on the season.

“We’re going there hoping to make a name for ourselves,” said Charlestown graduate Whitney Zollman, a freshman pitcher. “There’s 20 teams there and they seeded us 20th so that shows where people think we should be, we just want to go there and prove that we can play at that level.”

“We weren’t surprised by winning region because we went there thinking we had a chance to win,” said sophomore Shana Andres, a Floyd Central grad. “This team, we play well off of one another. We pick each other up in spots because we all seem to know each other so well. We feel really good about ourselves when we play. That’s why we feel like we can continue to play well, regardless of who we’re playing.”

Buckingham said the team has shown no signs of worry this week.

“It’s pretty much been business as usual,” he said. “Nothing really different has gone into the week. I’ve pretty much scouted every team that we will play, but I keep that to myself. The less they know about the other team, the better they tend to play and we’ll keep it that way.”

        

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