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GOT YOUR BACK
UW softball team blends winning attitude, elite talent and a selfless culture in their bid for a return to the College World Series
BY BART POTTER • FOR GO HUSKIES MAGAZINE
By any measure, the Washington Husky softball program has a winning culture.
Defining “culture” in collegiate softball — and establishing it — might be elusive for some programs. For the Husky players who spoke for their teammates at a preseason news conference in February, it’s pretty simple: It means I’ve got your back, and you’ve got mine.
There is no better example of the concept for this team than a critical NCAA Regional game last May in Husky Softball Stadium. The short version: Washington defeated McNeese State, 7-6, after trailing 6-0 heading to the top of the seventh inning.
Freshman ace Ruby Meylan started the game in the circle for the Huskies. Six runs, all earned, on eight hits — an uncharacteristic four innings.
Enter Brooke Nelson, a part-time first-baseplayer with 28.1 innings of spot relief pitching under her belt all season. She held McNeese scoreless in the fifth and sixth innings and then, after the Huskies got crazy busy with a seven-spot in the top of seventh, Nelson shut down the Cowgirls again in the bottom.
At the February news conference, Nelson remembered thinking, “If you can get seven runs for me, I can get three outs for you.”
The victory in the rubber match of three games in two days against McNeese sent the Huskies to the Super Regionals, where they won two straight to advance to the Women’s College World Series for the eighth time in Coach Heather Tarr’s 19-year tenure at UW.
“Our core values are always the same,” junior shortstop Rylee Holtorf said. “We have a foundation as a program that Coach Tarr has instilled in us.”
It’s a culture.
“Our core values are always the same,” junior shortstop Rylee Holtorf said. “We have a foundation as a program that Coach Tarr has instilled in us.”
Tarr, a native of Redmond, Wash., has become the winningest coach of any sport in Washington history with a 800-300-1 record, a .727 winning percentage that ranks 10th among active Division I softball head coaches.
Washington opened the 2024 season with four games at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge in early February in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, defeating Nebraska, Utah Valley and Iowa State. The Huskies only loss came to top-ranked and threetime defending national champion Oklahoma, 4-3, in eight innings.
This month — after 19 neutral-site games in far-flung locales to start the season — the Huskies return home to open their Pac-12 schedule with a three-game series March 8-10 against Arizona State at Husky Softball Stadium.
For this edition of the Huskies, Tarr hopes to expand the versatility of her pitching staff around Meylan and appears to have the arms to do it.
Last year, Meylan earned the trust of a veteran Washington team and assumed the lead Dawg role in the circle. She finished 18-7 with a 2.14 ERA, spinning 204 strikeouts in 180 innings, and was named a National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) third team All-American and first team All-Pac 12.
She’s bumped her velocity into the 70s working with Husky assistant coach Lance Glasoe and had a chance to work with all-time Husky great Danielle Lawrie, the indomitable pitcher on Washington’s 2009 national championship team. She also got to pick the brains of coaches for Team USA as part of the Japan All-Star Series team last August.
Few programs can claim a No. 2 pitcher with credentials to match Husky senior lefthander Lindsay Lopez of San Tan Valley, Ariz. In 2023, after transferring from Arizona State, Lopez was 14-3 in 94.2 innings with a 3.25 ERA. At ASU in 2022, she earned first-team All-Pac 12 honors with a 13-5 record and 2.12 ERA.
Nelson, from Bonney Lake, Wash., will get her innings in the circle, too, while her role at first base will expand in her graduate student season.
Freshman Sidne Peters brings gaudy high school numbers from Santa Fe, Texas, where in 2022 she posted a 0.80 ERA with a 23-5 record and 290 strikeouts.
The year-over-year version of “we have your back” for the 2024 team means picking up for the big loud pop missing from the middle of the lineup, where departed All-Pac-12 performers Bailee Klingler, Sami Reynolds and Madison Huskey (who doubled in the eventual winning run in the epic McNeese game) drummed out a combined 31 home runs and 124 RBI for a 44-win Husky team.
And while Holtorf’s 141 at-bats in 2023 are easily the most among returning players, the small sample size at the college level is no indicator of these Huskies’ offensive potential. For authority on that, ask the pitchers.
Said Lopez, “As a pitcher, I have been noticing (in scrimmages) they’ve been getting tougher and tougher to get out.”
“I think you have a core group of girls that have been waiting their turn,” Nelson said, “ready to show the world who they are and what Husky softball is.”
“It’s a new fresh lineup,” Meylan said, “a speedy lineup.”
Ink in the elite speed of Brooklyn Carter for the leadoff spot. The sophomore centerfielder from Inglewood, Calif., averaged .277 and finished second in the Pac-12 with 28 stolen bases in 52 games (24 starts) as a freshman. In Puerto Vallarta, she had seven hits to lead the Huskies and stole six bags.
Team leader Holtorf, of Peoria, Ariz., will slot in at second or third in the order and play a sterling shortstop. She was named to the Pac-12 All-Defensive first team, and her .277 batting average in 2023 was a 50-point uptick from her freshman season.
Junior infielder Kinsey Fiedler, of Lee’s Summit, Mo., hit .277 in 46 starts in 2023, with five homers and 18 RBI in 119 at-bats. She also smacked a homer against Iowa State in Puerto Vallarta in February.
The Huskies are looking for big things from graduate transfer infielder Jillian Celis (Corona, Calif.), who had a decorated career at San Diego State, including Mountain West Conference tournament MVP in 2023. She hit .343 with 10 homers and 48 RBI for the Aztecs’ Super Regional team last season.
Freshman catcher/DH Jadyn Glab hit a home run and drove in six runs in Puerto Vallarta. She was the state 5A player of the year in high school in Dubuque, Iowa.
Catcher is a deep position on this roster, with sophomore Sydney Stewart of San Jose (.261, 10 RBI in 2023), junior Olivia Johnson of Pearland, Texas (.207), junior transfer Haley Winckler (.389/32 RBI at Bellevue Community College) and Glab able to hunker down behind the plate.
Alana Johnson, a junior utility player from Summit, Miss., hit .238 with 22 RBI (tied with Holtorf for the most on the current roster) in 24 starts last year. She knocked in five runs in Puerto Vallarta and hit a homer against Iowa State.
Senior outfielder Avery Hobson, of Belton, Mo., transferred from Oklahoma State before last season and hit .298 in 20 starts.
Nelson, in her fifth year in the program, said the Huskies got a taste of the College World Series in Oklahoma City, where they won their first game but lost the next two. They want more.
Holtorf said, “The goal is not just to get back to Oklahoma City but to win the last game in Oklahoma City.”
“I’ll stand by it,” Nelson said. “I think we have one of the best cultures in the country.”
