After 14 years at the helm as Head Coach for the Lake Land College Lakers Softball team, Gregory Nic Nelson resigned as coach and was replaced with assistant coach, John Hendrix. Hendrix was an assistant coach for the previous six seasons for the Lakers Softball team.
According to Lakers’ Athletic Dept. Secretary, Meredith Dawn Perez, “Hendrix before coming to campus as an assistant, was the Cumberland High School Softball team’s head coach for several years and he was the Cumberland Middle School assistant softball coach.”
Perez mentioned, “Nic Nelson is a great coach, and he did wonderful things here at Lake Land College and for the Laker Softball Team. I know he taught John a lot about coaching and softball. I do not know the circumstances; I just know he felt it was time for him to move on.”
Under the leadership of Hendrix and assistant, Rachel Kauffman, the Lakers had their usual dominant season of a 48-14 record. They were 24-4 at home, 19-7 on the road and 5-3 at neutral sites. They finished with a 31-5 record in the Region 24 Conference.
After an 8-8 start, a slow start for the Softball team’s standards, the team went on a 13-game winning streak. They also had an 8-game winning streak and a 13-game winning streak to end their regular season.
In the Region 24 Conference tournament held on Lake Land’s campus, the Lakers defeated Lincoln Trail College Statesmen, 8-1; Wabash Valley College Warriors, 9-3; and John A. Logan College Volunteers, 6-3, to win the tournament.
As a result of their successful season, the Laker Softball team was ranked as the top Division II team in the country and received the #1 seed in the NJCAA DII Softball World Series tournament, which was held at Oxford, Alabama.
In the national tournament, the Lakers dropped a 3-1 decision to the Iowa Western Community College Reivers. In the elimination round, the Lakers defeated the Hutchinson Community College Blue Dragons, 5-2 before losing to Walters State Community College Senators, 5-2, bringing the Laker Softball team’s season to an end.
For the season, the Lakers Softball team on offense, scored 438 runs, batted .330 as a team, a .413 on base percentage, a slugging percentage of .545. The team garnered 529 total hits, including 51 home runs, 30 triples and 131 doubles. They had 378 runs batted in (RBIs) with 212 extra base hits.
The Laker batters walked 182 times and were hit by a pitch 70 times. They struck out 242 times with 35 sacrifice flies and 60 sacrifice bunts. They stole 145 bases and were caught stealing only 22 times.
The Laker pitching staff racked up 28 shut outs with an Earned Run Average (ERA) of 1.24, which is ranked 2nd nationally. Opposing hitters batted only .190, which is #1 nationally.
