It’s become a regular occurrence at this point for the Odessa College softball team.
Win the Western Junior College Athletic Conference, win the Region V West tournament, go to nationals and repeat.
This time, head coach Jeff Jackson and his players are striving for something more; the national championship.
Just five more wins will do it as the No. 1 seed Lady Wranglers begin their run at the NJCAA World Series at noon May 23 against Gordon State in the first round in Oxford, Ala.
Odessa College will be hoping that experience helps out a bunch as the Lady Wranglers (51-4) enter the tournament with 13 sophomores who were a part of last year’s third place finish.
“Experience can definitely help out,” Jackson said. “Junior college is a different animal with where you have two years and then you’re gone. I’ve always said that as soon as we get them right where we want them, when we finish developing them and we’ve felt good about where we are. Then, we send them off to somebody else. We’re all really young and dumb going into the national tournament. It doesn’t matter how good you are. Everyone is somewhat young and somewhat dumb. Hopefully, we’re one of the more experienced teams out there and maybe that will bring some intelligence with it too.”
Last year, the Lady Wranglers posted the best season in school history, finishing 55-7 and taking home a third place trophy after making it to the semifinals in Yuma, Ariz.
That run has only left the team hungry for more.
“If it’s happened before, then it can happen again,” Jackson said. “Once it happens one time, it opens up the possibilities of it happening again. It’s not impossible. I think that’s what last year’s run did. It opened up a mindsets and opportunities for the girls in this program to say ‘if we can do it last year, then we can do that and more this year’”.
Odessa College is currently on a 29-game winning streak, a run that dates all the way back to March 16 when the team defeated Ranger College in a 22-0 run-ruled victory.
The Lady Wranglers’ last loss came just one day earlier against McMurry University on March 15.
Since then, Odessa College has been rolling off wins. At times, they’ve made it look too easy with numerous run-rule victories.
They didn’t slip up in the Region V West Tournament, going undefeated and defeating Midland College 8-0 in the semifinals and 11-2 in the championship.
“They did their job,” Jackson said of his players from last week’s region tournament. “They did what we should’ve done. They continued to play the exact same way that we’ve been playing throughout conference and the entire year.”
The Lady Wranglers’ only other losses from this season, aside from the defeat to McMurry in March, were a 9-1 loss to Grayson College and a 10-2 loss to San Jacinto College-South, both on Jan. 27.
They also were dealt a 5-2 loss to Chipola College on Jan. 29.
The only other games that have stood out to Jackson where the Lady Wranglers’ offense wasn’t its best was the 4-0 win over Western Texas College on March 25.
“There have been very few games that I can think of, like Day 1 and our lost to McMurry where our offense didn’t show up,” Jackson said. “You can say the 4-0 win over Western Texas but I’ve always been adamant that we went up against a good pitcher that day and we did a good job of hitting mistake pitches when we found them. I would not say our offense was on at that point but maybe three games where our offense wasn’t there but every other time, it’s been very electric and very fun to watch. They continued to do that when it mattered most.”
Now, the Lady Wranglers will be going up against other regional winners from around the country in next week’s tournament and Jackson knows his team can’t look beyond the first game.
“It’s one game at a time,” Jackson said. “We will not at all look past one opponent. Not everybody scouts that way or prepares that way but for us, that’s always been a key ingredient. We need to stay in the moment and be where our feet are and not assume anything. As soon as we start assuming something, it’ll come back to bite us. We’re always going to start off with a clean slate. I think it gives us an advantage, playing teams that we haven’t played before. I think we’ve done a good job of surprising people and playing tough softball. … Hopefully, we’ll get those timely hits and timely defense like we’ve seen our girls do so much in the past. That’s going to be our focus. Whoever we go up against in the first round, that’s who we’re going to focus on.”
With the team riding a winning streak and a No. 1 ranking, Jackson says there’s no shortage of confidence as the Lady Wranglers hope to bring home the program’s first national championship.
“We have all the confidence in the world in our abilities,” Jackson said. “We know what we’re capable of and we can make a run at a national championship. We’ll need a lot of luck on our side. Whoever wins this, they’re going to require luck. You have to fall in the right place at the right time but you also have to put yourself in those positions. I think we are confident in who we are. It’s just a matter of playing our game against good teams.”
