The Odessa College softball team enters the Region V Tournament riding a 26-game winning streak and a 48-4 overall record, which includes an undefeated conference record at 24-0 and a No. 1 ranking in the NJCAA polls.
None of those accomplishments will matter if the Lady Wranglers fail to win this week’s Region V tournament.
On Friday, the No. 1 seed Lady Wranglers will play the winner of Howard College and Frank Phillips in the quarterfinal round ofthe regional tournament at Lubbock Christian University.
In order to qualify for the NJCAA World Series in Oxford, Ala., Odessa College must win the entire Region V tournament.
Odessa College head coach Jeff Jackson and his players are all quite aware of the challenge awaiting them as they know they don’t have much room for error in the double-elimination tournament.
The Lady Wranglers have been to the NJCAA World Series for the last two seasons, advancing to the semifinals last year.
“The good news is that we chose to lose the (regional) semifinal game last year and made life hard for ourselves then,” Jackson said. “Hopefully, we don’t do that to ourselves again this year. The goal is to always go undefeated. We’re always chasing perfection, every single year. But nobody is just going to hand it to you. Everybody is going to be hunting us. Everybody is going to want to knock us off. We have to go and play our game.”
The good news is? The Lady Wrangler players are practicing against the best team in the nation each day.
“I think the biggest benefit that we have is that we’re around the best team in the nation every day,” Jackson said. “We can always go in practice in ways that challenge us. Challenge our pitchers, challenge our hitters. If you can hit off of Emily(Brouse) and Rayna (Cruickshanks), you’re going to be successful at the national level. If you can strike out our hitters, you’re going to be successful at the national level.
That’s the advantage the Lady Wranglers have as they prepare for the postseason.
Jackson says they can always create challenges and opportunities in practices and put pressure on themselves.
“Our mindset is to have a lot of pride in who we are and how we play the game,” Jackson said. “We are very competitive. We always want to challenge ourselves so we welcome any sort of challenge.”
The Lady Wranglers are coming off a series sweep against Frank Phillips College last weekend in their regular season finale.
For the last month, Odessa College has made it look all too easy, winning games in run-ruled victories and usually scoring double-digit runs.
Their last one-run victory was a 16-15 win over Howard College on April 15 in a series in which the Lady Wranglers won the other games by scores of 13-1, 13-0 and 16-5.
Odessa College’s other closest win in the last two months was a 4-0 win over Western Texas College back on March 25.
“It’s just kind of out there where we haven’t played those high-caliber teams in a long time,” Jackson said. “We’ve played some high-powered offenses and we played a good Western Texas pitcher. We haven’t had those matchups but we’re not going to over think things at the same time. We know that we’re a good team and we know that we can get things done and not just win but be pretty dominant. There will be some tough matchups but our mentality is to play our game, no matter what, and to go compete no matter what. That’s what the postseason emphasizes.”
Jackson is proud of his team’s accomplishment in going undefeated in the Western Junior College Athletic Conference (WJCAC)portion of the season.
“I think it’s a special accomplishment,” Jackson said. “This conference is not necessarily what it was ten years ago or five years ago but we’re still not going downplay our accomplishment because it says a lot about our girls that we showed up every game and handled our business.”
While adjusting from a four-game series to a conference tournament can be a little tricky, Jackson and his players know they’ve already beaten everyone in their conference this season (more than once) and that the goal is to treat this weekend like any other.
“I think it can be hard to beat somebody five or six times a year,” Jackson said. “I think it can present a challenge. I think it’s just another weekend for us though. Yes, it’s the postseason and we did hit the acceleration early this season and we wanted to hit that pedal as we got going and going because we want to play our best game at the end of the season. That’s been more of our mindset recently. But it is just another weekend. It’s the same teams we’ve already faced throughout conference. We’re the only undefeated team. We’re not going to go and coast. Just because we’ve gone undefeated doesn’t mean anything is guaranteed.”
Western Texas College and El Paso Community College will face each other in the other first round game on Friday.
Midland College is the No. 2 seed in the tournament.
